Lawyers debate media coverage of public figures

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Media lawyers from four countries united in Auckland yesterday to defend the public's right to know the foibles of those who seek to rule and entertain.

"We have the right as citizens to watch the mighty fall and the flighty be mauled," declared British lawyer Mark Stephens, in a light-hearted debate with serious themes at the International Bar Association's annual conference.

"They betray our faith in democracy and would make Enron's accountants blush. They don't need protection from us - these are people who crept into the seats of power with copies of Machiavelli tucked into every orifice."

Mr Stephens, whose clients have included Penthouse magazine and CNN, also rubbished claims by celebrity entertainers for the right to privacy when it suited them.

"These are people who have relentlessly invaded their own privacy, [and] made a fortune out of it."

He wondered why the public had to wait until former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was dead before learning that he suffered from Alzheimer's disease with his finger "trembling" over the nuclear button.

But fellow British litigator Alasdair Pepper, whose clients include some caught in the glare of publicity, said invoking the public interest to justify invading people's privacy was "a load of bollocks".

"What it's about is money - in the United Kingdom people think nothing of the daily diet of intrusive articles of a billion-pound industry."

The press had, through insidious and underhand tactics, created an "appalling" situation in which public figures were often unable to leave their homes on mundane errands without fear of being photographed".

Mr Pepper believed the rot set in more than a decade ago when British tabloid The People sold 600,000 extra copies by publishing surreptitious photos of the Duchess of York having her toes sucked by her former financial adviser, Johnny Bryan.

Auckland lawyer Willie Akel, who acts for Television New Zealand, said people had a right to judge whether the off-duty behaviour of public figures conformed with the images they wanted to portray.

"The public want to know what is true and not be manipulated by spin-doctors - those who seek to rule and entertain us are quite properly the subject of entertainment themselves."

American media lawyer Kelli Sager said she grew up in a small town with little privacy, and saw the possibility of disclosure as a useful restraint on the behaviour of public figures.

Broadcaster Paul Holmes, who chaired the debate, noted that life in a small town was so good that she left and said he was sick of the relentless attention to which he was subjected even when off-duty.

Ms Sager retorted that if he did not want to be bothered by "adulation", he could always find a radio station job in Pocatello, Idaho.