User-generated beats paparazzi?

Posted by Jean Yves Chainon on February 28, 2007 at 10:51 AM

According to leading paparazzo Hans Paul, the value of celebrity pictures has been seriously undermined due to the multitude of amateur pictures snapped through portable devices and mobile phones. What happens when user-generated content competes with journalism, for the better or for the worse?

Paul says paparazzi fees have reached new lows since anybody can capture and distribute quality pictures around the world within seconds.

"There is no doubt that we paparazzi are suffering from this. There is hardly any money to be made in the everyday business."

Latest example of this was Saddam Hussein’s hanging, which was captured by an amateur and quickly diffused around the world through YouTube.

This, of course, isn’t to complain about the decreasing value of a paparazzo’s work… (Paul once earned $120,00 for a picture of pregnant Julia Roberts). On the other hand, there is the perhaps even more worrisome possibility that the public becomes - or is it already? - the new paparazzi.

Source: Media Guardian