Privacy - a privilege?

Max Mosley believes that he should be notified before any stories about him are published. I am sure Premiership footballers up and down the country will be rubbing their hands (keep it clean....) at the prospect of having to be informed if a slapper sells her story to the popular press. They'll no doubt be joined by a number of obvious candidates who have been the subject of negative stories.

Rather than wasting money on taking matters like this through the courts, shouldn't self-absorbed, attention seekers stop living their lives in the public eye? There are numerous celebs out there who I have no idea what the hell they do with their lives outside of a film or tv studio, or the sports field, or wherever. People who don't try and capitalise on every little detail of their insecure lives. 

Then there are the media whores, who use every tiny little piece of publicity to their own advantage. Yet they also seem to be the first to go running to their lawyers at the first sign of any negative publicity. Don't they realise that they have made themselves the subject of such scrutiny? The public are just as much interested in their downfalls, failings and mistakes because they are being spoon fed all of the good times.

If I was the editor of a newspaper, magazine or TV programme, and the ECHR do indeed rule that the media should be subject to rules of 'prior notification', I wouldn't give any of them an ounce of publicity. What's that Price, you want to talk about your marriage again? Go and shout about it in Trafalgar Square, then. I wouldn't be wasting any more of my time on you.

Privacy and press reporting has to be balanced. My concern is that if it was to swing too far towards protecting privacy, many parts of the popular press will become promotional tools for those who can afford it. If you put yourself in the spotlight, then you have to be able to deal with the consequences of your actions, good or bad. When self-censorship comes into play, there is no freedom of the press.

Celebs live in a strange world. Some crave attention, but don't like it when what they get isn't what they wanted. It's no different to the locals gossiping in the village pub; it's on a much bigger scale. The main difference is the ordinary bloke in the street won't be able to pay someone not to tell the other drinkers about his sordid little affair or his dubious sexual preferences. Is this the start of a two-tier system of dealing with what can and can't be reported about people?