• The Publisher’s Notebook
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Malibu’s De Facto Paparazzi Doings
I am already on record as opposing any
municipal legislation to put curbs on paparazzi, or any other
members of the media, credentialed or otherwise, even ones who
behave in ways I may personally abhor because I will
accept no abridgement of the right of free speech that does not
jeopardize public safety. I stand with Thomas Jefferson that if
I have to choose between government and a free press, I
will opt for the free press. Sadly, there are too many times
when I think this would have been particularly applicable in
Malibu public policymaking.
I feel compelled to return to the
city’s exploration of a draft ordinance to curb
inappropriate paparazzi behavior in light of the exchanges
between a local freelance journalist and the mayor and city
attorney that continued long after the rest of the pages of
this week’s issue of The News had been put to press. The
City of Malibu has shot itself in the foot on policy
issues as disparate as the poorly crafted Measure M and what
may become the equally disastrous Legacy Park
boondoggle. Its de facto paparazzi panel may be another.
If a local government ever needed
transparency to save it from itself, the City of Malibu may be
it. If the city wants to stop photographers from driving
unsafely, blocking public walkways, or harassing
children near schools, the laws are already on the
books. The state Paparazzi Act, traffic and trespass laws, and
child endangerment measures are there for the enforcement. The
city should put the legal system to work and leave the
First Amendment alone.
I have been equally forthright in my
concern that the man who turned the Clinton family foibles into
a national pastime, nurturing the worst of prurient celebrity
fascination, and turned an Alaskan teenager’s harmless
prank banner of “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” into a
repressive curb on young voices is not the person to steer
Malibu’s public policy on the media.
If free speech and communication cannot
flourish unfettered, even if immature or tasteless by
traditional norms, at our institutions of learning, how can we
develop a citizenry unafraid to speak up when the
emperor has no clothes, starts a war without cause, or
cripples an economy on behalf of the favored few? My fear
is a Starr Chamber would extend those Alaskan free speech curbs
to press and non-press alike.
Malibu does not need non-committees of
unnamed experts selected by unknown criteria. Governmental
secrecy is the watchword of those who would dictate to others
in their own self-interest.
