DATE: Tuesday, September 2, 1997            TAG: 9709020015

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Ann Sjoerdsma 

                                            LENGTH:   70 lines

JOURNALISM: DON'T SHOOT MESSENGER; STUDY MESSAGE

It appears the press played a key role in the death of Princess Diana. But for the hounding presence of the paparazzi, Diana and her entourage probably would not have been recklessly speeding in a Parisian tunnel.

And yet, to blame the press - even the money-grubbing, no-sense-of-decency paparazzi - for Diana's death is to ``shoot'' the messenger and ignore the message. The message is much larger than the messenger, encompassing a much broader complicity.

The message, to paraphrase Pogo, is ``us.''

What killed Diana? Ultimately, our greed, our voyeurism, our endless desire for celebrity, glamour and salacious gossip. Or, as one former member of the British Parliament put it, our need for relief from ``the humdrum.''

Diana was the fairy princess, and Dodi Fayed the prince. But even Diana knew how to manipulate the press and her good-looking image to further her own popularity and get what she wanted. She exploited journalists - planting seeds with those she favored - just as the tabloid press exploits our voyeurism.

With the tabloids, however, the exploitation is ``business,'' simple supply-and-demand. The tabloids make unseemly millions because we're willing to pay unseemly millions to read them.

And they're not alone. Even the ``mainstream'' press has bowed to the celebrity culture, including Hollywood-type gossip columns as regular features.

Our Constitution recognizes the importance of the press as both a truthteller and a watchdog of democracy. The press' access to information - especially in courtrooms and political meetings - and its presentation of multiple viewpoints are vital to the maintenance of a free society. To ``the marketplace of ideas.''

And yet, the First Amendment, although it implicitly protects the acquisition of knowledge from undue government interference, does not grant the press an exemptive status. Members of the press can be held liable for invasion of privacy, defamation, emotional distress and other torts, as ABC News recently discovered in the Food Lion surveillance case. They can be charged with crimes, such as trespass, assault, stalking. And they can be restrained.

In 1975, the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis succeeded in enjoining her longtime nemesis Ron Galella from coming within 25 feet of her, and 30 feet of her children. Galella, who had far less sophisticated camera equipment than today's paparazzi, finally gave up in 1982.

Princess Diana did the same with one photographer. But how does a public figure, who's viewed as having consented to - and may even court - media scrutiny, restrain an entire institution? Or an entire culture?

The press' status derives from the notion of ``the public's right to know.'' From the unfettered pursuit of truth. But is it the ``public's right to know'' whom Diana was kissing on a beach in St. Tropez, France, recently? The Italian photographer who snatched blurry pictures of Diana and Fayed through a telephoto lens became a millionaire overnight.

Is it the public's right to know with whom Diana was dining last Saturday or where she was going after she left the hotel restaurant? Seven photographers on motorcycles would argue so.

In the aftermath of Diana's death, we will talk a lot about privacy laws, both civil and criminal. The balance between the public interest in a free press and the individual's interest in privacy has long been a precarious one. We will try to carve out laws directed at harassing paparazzi that do not infringe upon constitutional protections.

But ultimately, this tragedy is not a matter of law, but of ethics. Of fair play. Decency. Respect. Responsibility. Dignity. Good taste. And in that message, all of us ``players'' have a role. MEMO: Ann G. Sjoerdsma, a lawyer, is an editorial columnist and book

editor for The Virginian-Pilot. KEYWORDS: PRINCESS DIANA

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