A New Year special…
Media Law
Is this law at all, or simply a chance to rub shoulders with the famous (acceptable) and rich (desirable)? Given that the Courts cannot make their mind up about whether there is a right not to have your photograph taken at any time when you spend 80% of your waking hours showing your knickers to the paparazzi (or ‘annoying little prats’ as they are known in royal circles) why should this be anyone’s speciality?
Still, there it is. Whole firms are devoted to this issue which, given that it involves the meejah, means that their lawyers are often on the TV or the radio explaining to the rest of us why it’s ok to take Naomi’s photo when she’s assessing the length of her tongue against a Russian billionaire’s ear, but not when she’s coming out of the clinic with that little package saying ‘antabuse’. There’s even a book on privacy, although obviously I’m not allowed to tell you what it says.
What’s more, people are often offended by the fact that there is to be a TV or Radio programme revealing that they keep Nazi uniforms in their bedrooms, or collect money for charities which assist foolish young men to ensure their life is even nastier, shorter and infinitely more brutish than Thomas Hobbes ever envisaged. Oddly, people wishing to be really, really unpleasant to others by depriving them of basic freedoms are terribly keen on exercising those freedoms for themselves, so there’s work out there.
Advantages. Daaahhhhling. This is where it’s at sweetiepie. Whichever way you look, you’re defending freedom so there’s a real feelgood factor here. Not the grimy little freedoms like staying out of the nick and being innocent until proven guilty either. Those freedoms are, like, so yesterday. No, this is real freedom – either of the press or of the individual. Coo-el. And best of all, both sides are awash with dosh, so your plumber will bring 2 assistants, an associate and three trainees, thus making his visits indistiguishable from the way you deal with cases at work. Your colleagues will be envious and you will be doing cutting edge work. After all, nothing is more cutting edge than deciding if this is really law or not.
Disadvantages. You have to know who Kate, Amy, Katy, Pete, Blake, Naomi and Peter really are. You have to pretend to care. Worse still, you may end up actually caring. Worse yet, you may have to act for the Royal family (no, not daaahhling Catherine’s creation – the real ones) and get to see the photos of the heir to the throne dressed up as what he talked about on the Squidgygate tapes. Yeuw. You will have to look smooth and well-dressed which, for most lawyers, is a challenge which severely cuts into the total number of billable hours in a day. Unless you act for the Royals you will either be past it at 33, or the sort of person with an adolescence so retarded that Peter Pan thinks you are a bit of a baby.