 Real journalists or Peeping Toms?
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-25 07:56
The term Paparazzi (plural form of paparazzo) is named after a character in the 1960 Fellini film La Dolce Vita. Signor Paparazzo is a photographer who is constantly searching for the next big picture. Compared to their counterparts in Hollywood and Hong Kong, mainland paparazzi are rather new. The first lot appeared in 2003, when the tabloid Big Star hit the market. Most of the mainland paparazzi, including Zhuo Wei, started their professional career at Big Star, which is now called Total Entertainment. The three leading Chinese websites have contracts with two or three paparazzi each. Time magazine's Style & Design special issue in 2005 had a story entitled "Shooting Star", in which Mel Bouzad, one of the top paparazzi in Los Angeles at the time, claimed to have made $150,000 for a picture of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez in Georgia after their breakup. He also said if he got a picture of Britney and her baby he would be able to buy a house in those hills above Sunset Boulevard. But Zhuo and most mainland paparazzi do not find their jobs so rewarding. According to Zhuo, the average monthly earnings from selling photos to other newspapers, magazine and websites is 30,000 yuan ($4,400), most of which he uses to pay his three studio employees. As soon as their stories go online, they are replicated a hundred times over. Zhuo says it is very difficult to prevent this as lawsuits would be too time-consuming and expensive. His buyers now include several publications in Hong Kong. While mainland paparazzi are less aggressive than those in Hong Kong and Hollywood, some say they can hardly be called real journalists. However, many others feel they are courageous, reader-oriented and deserve respect. While some stars hate the paparazzi and blame them for exposing unsavory details, others see an opportunity for longed-for publicity. Hong Kong's Yazhou Zhoukan ran an article in 2006 after singer Gillian Chung's half-nude photos in the dressing room were exposed, saying: "Paparazzi are actually holding a puppet show, with the strings being pulled by the market and the readers." China Daily
(China Daily 03/25/2009 page18) |
