ABSTRACT
Chapter 8: Is it time to abandon privacy? The opening discussion in this chapter centres on the long-running privacy intrusion case involving British pop icon Sir Cliff Richard and the UK national broadcaster, the BBC. It asks: Who is entitled to privacy, and who has to give up that right in the pursuit of fame and fortune? It answers several other questions around privacy, like what is it and what do journalists think it is? Are they talking about public interest, or what the public is interested in? Privacy intrusion is also a central theme of the chapter. The authors use Australian Paul Chadwick’s ‘Taxonomy of fame’ to highlight the various groups most affected by intrusion into their privacy. The five-point taxonomy nominates fame by election or appointment, by achievement, by chance, by association, and royal fame as the groups most likely to have their privacy intruded upon. The case study at the end of the chapter chronicles the pre-Christmas chaos at Gatwick airport in 2018 when a drone closed the airport and disrupted the travel plans of 350,000 people. It looks at the London newspapers’ coverage of the chaos and the attacks on a couple who were temporarily suspects. One front page headline castigated the couple as ‘the morons that ruined Christmas’.
