Cult of celebrity - Everyone wants their ‘15 minutes’

Old-school journalists may lament the day when newspaper reports were often stated to be ‘from our own correspondent’. 

Those were the days when journalists revelled in anonymity and would have been horrified for their name, let alone their face, to be recognised by the public.

Indeed, the former editor of The Times of London, William Haley, was of the opinion that “signed writing invites exhibitionism”.

But with the advent of ‘citizen journalism’, everyone wants their name, and face, in lights. The cult of celebrity used to be confined to film stars or our political, sporting, and military heroes.

Nowadays, everyone can be a celebrity, and not just for a moment, as expressed by Andy Warhol’s prediction that, “in the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes”. The cult of celebrity gets ever stronger, as the record viewing figures for Dancing With The Stars and the annual journalistic Twitter league reveal.

The only journalistic anonymity left lies in writing newspaper editorials.