North Star Writers Group

Usually I find it irritating when celebrities complain about being in the public eye and try to sensor the questions put forth by their interviewers. Like it or not, being a celebrity goes hand-in-hand with leading a visible life. To enjoy the benefits of being rich and admired, you must deal with the downfalls, as do the rest of us regular folks at our less glamorous jobs.

But the recent hoopla over Angelina Jolie’s movie premiere press requirements – which included a pre-interview contract prohibiting members of press from asking about her personal life and an initial ban on Fox News attending the premiere - is a bit overblown and misses the point.

No one has been more vocal about Jolie’s indiscretions than the jilted Fox News, who called Jolie hypocritical for making a movie that discusses the importance of freedom of press and then setting into motion bans and requirements for the press at the movie’s premiere. The movie, A Mighty Heart, is based on the memoir of Marianne Pearl, a French-born journalist whose husband, Daniel Pearl, was kidnapped and killed in Pakistan while on assignment for the Wall Street Journal.

The movie premiere itself was held in conjunction with a fundraiser for Reporters Without Borders, an organization promoting freedom of press. I’ll admit, it sounds bad. Given the context of the premiere, Jolie probably should have thought twice before making such a move (or allowing her lawyers to make such a move as she now contends was the case). But looking past Jolie’s prima donna behavior, comparing Fox News to Daniel Pearl is even more ludicrous and egotistical.

Daniel Pearl was in Pakistan to cover issues regarding the War on Terror, and died at the hands of terrorists in the name of reporting the facts. Members of the press in Jolie’s case want to know what her partner and four children ate for breakfast. An article on the subject appearing on FoxNews.com sarcastically quips, “Reporters Without Borders, indeed,” as if Reporters Without Borders’ sole concern is whether or not the press can ask personal questions of celebrities. It is insulting to Daniel Pearl that the press would invoke his name and the circumstances of his tragic death in conjunction with something so inconsequential, and arrogant of Fox News to align their situation with his, especially considering that they were able to attend after all.

According to the contract put forth by Jolie’s lawyers, questions directed at the actress should be about the movie, and really, they should be anyway. Perhaps Jolie and her “people” just wanted to make sure that the premiere was handled in the media with the same seriousness with which the film itself handles real issues regarding journalism and personal loss. Surely if every question directed at her at the premiere somehow involved her personal life, it would appear that Angelina was stealing the spotlight from the issues presented by the movie and by Reporters Without Borders. And if she were to have told every reporter on the red carpet who asked about her personal life that she wasn’t going to answer such questions, she would still look self-important.

It’s not as if Angelina is shy all the time when it comes to talking about her life outside of her movies and humanitarian work. She recently did an interview with Marie Claire where she spoke lovingly and openly about her family. In that venue, a women’s magazine, such a discussion was relevant. At a movie premiere, which is supposed to be about the movie, not so much. Besides, how many times do we have to hear her say that Brad Pitt is a great dad and that she wants to adopt more kids?

Maybe reporters need to reconsider what is important. Sure, one can report about Paris Hilton’s stint in jail or Lindsay Lohan’s stint in rehab and still report about foreign affairs. It is when reporting of the former outweighs the latter, and even worse, when reporting on celebrity gossip becomes, in the eyes of the media, as important to free speech as reporting on the War on Terror, that we must acknowledge that something is not quite right with the state of American journalism.

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