I wonder if any of these paps have taken an absolute snorter of a shot something along the lines of Posh getting her toes sucked by ronaldo whilst swigging out of a bottle of Russian vodka and thought Hmmm i'm gonna keep that one to put towards my pension and kept it private for veiwing and selling at a later date.
Probably not, who's to say that particular celeb's career won't be in tatters next week, making the shot(s) worthless
I agree with redhead. I wouldn't go so far as to call them scum though.
Oh hang on, yeah I would.
And I constantly berate my wife when she buys Hello! or OK, or any daily tabloid arsepaper.
The demand is there because as a society we have created this huge notion that celebrity still 'means' something. At one time, if you were a celebrity, you were good at something, you were the best at it, and that's what made you famous.
Now, just go and live in a house for a few weeks with some strangers and boom, instant 'fame'. It means nothing.
Take Jade Goody for instance (putting aside the tragic events that are happening in her life right now of course).
What is she *actually* famous for? Getting her tits out on channel 4 and being 'a bit fick'. Yet she's a 'celebrity'. Why? Because she's been incredibly canny since she got out of the house, she's played the media and the public like puppets, and now she's worth a donkeyload.
It's a unique situation now because we have a fast moving media driven world. Pictures can be beamed pretty much anywhere on the globe within milliseconds.
The comparison with drug dealers is the same. OK, totally different levels of seriousness of course, but the premise is the same. There's a demand for it, which creates the dealer. While the demand is there, the dealer will deal....for his own gain. Remove the demand, the dealer goes away.
It's a shame it's got to the point now where the media is so sales and profit driven that anything they say just doesn't mean a damn thing anymore.
Just look at how they deal with celebs in womens mags. 'Mrs Celeb LOOKING AWFUL!!!!!' because they photographed her bringing the milk in at 6 in the morning. Who *doesn't* look like a bag of **** at that time in the morning (besides me of course
). Yet they'll run it next to a picture of her when they had her in for a makeover 2 months ago looking young, beautiful and airbrushed. All designed to sell sell sell.
And the
monkeys public buy into it week after week.....and yes, my wife is one of them.
She was watching Katie and Peter (Andre/Jordan) show a while ago and when they moved into their new house they showed them trying to keep the paps out, and my wife commented that it was disgusting how they couldn't be left alone. I did try and tell her that by buying OK and Hello she is paying those photographers to do that, but she doesn't care, she just wants to read all the 'gossip'.
So whose fault is it? It's the printed media for creating this monstrous profit machine, and the british public for paying for it.
To the comment about celebs phoning paps when they want to be in the news / leaking info etc, saying they can't have it both ways.
Why can't they? Why can't they control when THEY will have photographers in their lives? Why can't they say 'don't photographhy me with my kids at the park today, but you may photograph me while I'm out shopping in Knightsbridge tomorrow'.
Mags still get their latest shots, paps still get paid, joe monkey gets his glossy rag fix, everyones happy. (To an extent of course)
The lengths they will seem to go to are shocking tbh, complete intrusion into private lives. Sure, those in the public eye DO have *some* duty to BE in the public eye sometimes, but certainly not to the length of intrusion that we see today.
Ronnie Barker? Know who he is? Of course you do...one of the biggest names in British comedy of the past 50 years. Ever see him in the NOTW or OK / Hello?
If I caught a photo of anyone famous I'd sell it in a heartbeat, cha-ching 
