KEY POINTS:
The scene: a psychiatrist is urgently called to the home of a severely disturbed young woman. Together, the psychiatrist and the family decide to take her to hospital - without her consent - for a mental health evaluation. A specialist unit of the local police is called to
facilitate the journey. Traumatic enough, one might think. Except that when the young woman in question is Britney Spears, the nightmare has only just begun.
The pop star was indeed admitted to the University of California Medical Center in Los Angeles in the early hours of Thursday.
What made it a whole lot worse, though, was that the paparazzi pack got wind of the psychiatrist's late-night visit. By the time everyone was ready to move out of the house, the area was swarming with about 200 photographers and television camera operators. TV helicopters swooped overhead. Los Angeles police were forced to carry out an evacuation plan worthy of a military campaign - guarding the house against a possible paparazzi invasion, setting up a complicated series of roadblocks to throw the photographers off the trail, and blacking the windows in the ambulance so Britney could experience her trauma as privately as possible. The whole operation lasted hours and cost an estimated $25,000.
The rapid downward spiral of Britney Spears' life marks perhaps the lowest watermark in our tabloid culture - an entire industry feeding off the misery of a former teen idol turned very public basket-case. The business publication Portfolio estimated a few days ago that the "Britney-Industrial Complex" is worth about $120 million a year to the US economy - everything from the fees generated by her pictures to the boost in circulation, as much as one-third more, enjoyed by publications which put her on the cover. In the increasingly Wild West atmosphere of Hollywood's paparazzi agencies, she accounts for as much as 30 per cent of total revenue.
None of this has gone unquestioned, outside of some high-minded media discussion forums at the Los Angeles Times, the august local flagship newspaper which wavers between taking the high road and diving into the Britney story with the rest of the pack. Recently, though, even some of the photographers who make their living chronicling every step of her meltdown are beginning to examine their consciences, and their professional ethics. LA-based British photographer, Nick Stern, quit his job with the Splash news agency a few days ago because he couldn't bring himself to cover Britney another day longer.
"The Britney story is no longer about Britney," he said. "It's the media circus surrounding her... It's not journalism. Sooner or later, someone's going to get killed. Possibly Britney herself."
Stern said he could no longer stomach the sheer aggression of the pack - many of whom have no photographic training and, he said, include members of street gangs treating the trade in Britney snapshots as just another kind of criminal racket.
"I've heard stories of fights, of car tyres being slashed ... and vehicles jumping lights, all in the name of getting a picture."
- INDEPENDENT