Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 00:58:35 -0400

From: "Barry A. Popik" Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM

Subject: Videorazzi



Princess Diana is dead. I can't believe it.

David Shulman told me about his research into "paparazzi" (and

"paparazzo"). The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology is correct:



PAPARAZZO n., pl. PAPARAZZI, aggressive photographer who pursues celebrities.

1961, American English, borrowing of Italian _paparazzo_, in allusion to the

surname of a free-lance photographer in the Italian motion picture _La Dolce

Vita_ (1959).



Last summer, when I was in the British Isles, I came across "videorazzi"

in the London Times and waited for it to cross the pond. I don't have Nexis

now to check if "stalkerazzi" came first and to compare it with other "-azzi"

citations. "-azzi" is becoming to the media what "-gate" is to political

scandals.

This is from the Sunday Times (London), Style, Section 9, 18 August

1996, pg. 1 (photo of Princess Diana with her hand approaching a camera

lens):



FIGHTS,

CAMERA,

ACTION

If Diana hates the

paparazzi, wait

until she meets

the videorazzi



(Continued on pages 10-11)

Video nasties

The royals are fighting back against the ever-intrusive paparazzi. But

there's a new, even greater threat that's just arrived from Hollywood--the

videorazzi, right (photo--ed.)

CHRISTOPHER GODWIN reports



The paparazzi have gone too far and are being firmly put in their place.

Last week, the Princess of Wales obtained an injunction banning Martin

Stenning from coming within 300m of her. It was Stenning whose motorbike

beys Diana removed last month in order to stop him from following her. And

the Queen, too, has made her feelings known by taking legal action against

five freelance paparazzi in Scotland to stop them bothering the family while

they holiday at Balmoral.

As if they didn't already have enough of a fight on their hands, there

is a new threat on its way. In fact, it's already arrived, fresh from

America--the videorazzi, already the scourge of Hollywood. These new attack

dogs of the celebrity press corps are so aggressive and ruthless that even

some old-time paparazzi disown them.

The videorazzi earn their pieces of silver by flogging unflattering

videotape footage of stars caught cheating, in flagrante, drunk, drugged,

even dead, to the tabloid American television shows such as Hard Copy, Inside

Edition and American Journal--the wallpaper of the early-evening airwaves.

Their sworn enemies: the very stars from whom they earn their lucre.

To most celebrities, who enjoy the enormous benefits that their fame and

wealth bring them, the occasional intrusions of the videorazzi--who, after

all, are only pandering to a voracious appetite for celebrity material that

the stars, the studios and their publicists are already feeding--are a

necessary evil. Others, however, feel threatened and overwhelmed by the

depredations of the videorazzi (or the "stalkerazzi" or "scumerazzi" as some

stars prefer to call them), who are becoming increasingly aggressive and

ruthless to get the shots they want.

(...)