Privacy

More then a hundred years ago Warren and Brandeis produced their classic essay “The Right to Privacy” in 1890. They wrote:

“The press is overstepping in every direction the obvious bounds of propriety and of decency. Gossip is no longer the resource of the idle and of the vicious, but has become a trade, which is pursued with industry as well as effrontery. To satisfy prurient taste the details of sexual relations are spread broadcast in the columns of the daily papers. To occupy the indolent, column upon column is filled with idle gossip, which can only be procured by intrusion upon the domestic circle.”

Privacy has been defined as “the claim of individuals, groups or institutions to determine for themselves when, how and to what extent. It’s obviously that little has changed nowadays. Press intrusions upon the personal sphere are currently on the increase, more and more reports spy and disclose private life of the celebrities barbarically.

Douglas Keay said in 《Royal Pursuit: the Palace, the press and the people》 that, ‘Recent cases splashed across Fleet Street include the intruder in the Queen’s bedroom; the resignation of her personal bodyguard Commander Trestrail; the engagement, wedding and early married life of Charles and Diana, including most flagrantly photographs of Princess Diana bathing in a bikini on a private beach in the West Indies during her first pregnancy; and the friendship between Koo Stark and Prince.’ And the most serious outcome is that the Princess died because of the crazy tracing by the media.

The main reason for that condition is interest of press. The source of revenues of media organisations determines the media’s major function. Advertising revenue is the main source of Western press, which determines that their news must be able to attract the reader's attention. So they have to choose the topics and figures which the readers may be interested in to report. Thus they always pay more attention to the entertainment function of news.

Therefore, journalists’ own professional standards will be more and more important. Journalistic ethics will play a more important role in the relationship between press freedom and self-regulation.