Editors must curb excesses of stalkerazzi

Two years ago, an actress I know well was walking along a quiet residential street in Los Angeles with her three sons. The eldest one, then aged nine, asked her why a man with a camera was following them.

After she explained, he asked: "Is that a job?" Better yet, after consulting Google on his smartphone, he approached the photographer and asked him if he knew what paparazzo meant.

The man shook his head and the boy, said: "Buzzing horsefly." The shamed photographer buzzed off.

Amy Winehouse had to get a restraining order to lift a photographic siege on her house. Kate Middleton, prior to her marriage to Prince William, complained of being mobbed. Natasha Kaplinsky once told me of her house being surrounded.

In recent weeks, at the Leveson inquiry, we have heard of the paparazzi pack chasing Sienna Miller and spitting at her. Sheryl Gascoigne said she crawled around in her home to avoid being pictured through her windows. The mother of Hugh Grant's baby required a court order to restrain the pack.

Celebrities aside, when anyone is suddenly forced into the public spotlight, the horde descends. Kate McCann, mother of missing girl Madeleine, told how the snappers banged on her car. Her husband, Gerry, said they camped for days outside their house.

So much criticism has been levelled at press photographers that a group called the British Press Photographers' Association (BPPA) last week sought "core participant" status at the Leveson hearings to put its side of the story.

The BPPA, which claims to represent more than 800 photographers, was specifically set up in 1984 "to promote and inspire the highest ethical, technical and creative standards from within the profession."

Nothing wrong with that. The theory is fine. But what about the practice? Am I to disbelieve what I have seen? Does the BPPA think celebrities lied on oath to Lord Justice Leveson? Are all its members behaving to the highest professional standards?

If we accept that they are or, to be realistic, that the majority of them are, then almost all the trouble must be caused by an unprincipled photographic legion that thinks ethics is a county to the east of London. These are what I call the stalkerazzi.

Indeed, my wife and I once watched a trio of hooded cameramen stalking their prey, a TV personality, on Earls Court Road. The woman was not the subject of a news story, so there wasn't the least public interest reason to warrant such disproportionate activity.

It is too easily said that celebrities must pay a price for fame. Perhaps they should, but surely only up to a point. Anyway, who decides what price is fair? At present, the "victim" has no way of agreeing a deal.

Then there are people who become famous not because they seek it but because their work makes them well-known. The classic example is JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books. I once heard an editor describe her witheringly as being "notoriously private".

Think about that for a moment. In this celebrity-obsessed age, it is notorious to seek to enjoy a private life - to walk your children to school, to sunbathe on a lonely beach, to dress down for a trip to the supermarket - without being photographed.

So what do we do? What should Leveson do? There is no easy answer because we cannot prevent people taking pictures in public places. We do not wish to license journalists, whether they be reporters or photographers.

I cannot imagine a situation in which people approach celebrities, or anyone, to ask for permission to take pictures. We cannot compel the stalkerazzi to join a club. We cannot even force picture agencies - which care only about commerce - to come within the umbrella of self-regulation.

Instead, we have to rely on editors to stick to the current code of practice, which prohibits photographic harassment. Given that it hasn't worked thus far, perhaps we need to create a new clause to deal specifically with the blight of the stalking snappers.

Most of all, editors have to take responsibility for researching the provenance of the pictures they publish. They provide the market and they need to buy from accredited sources or, at least, make sure the photograph was obtained without needless intrusion and bad behaviour.

Roy Greenslade is Professor of Journalism, City University London, and writes a blog for the Guardian