…”Since the landmark elevation of gossip and celebrity scandal into a national obsession that was undoubtedly the O.J. trial, the picture or piece of video footage most in demand from Woody and his colleagues is the one featuring a celebrity in a “newsworthy” incident or set of circumstances. Time and again throughout the ’90s, events that would once have been purely paparazzi stories, covered in print by gossip columnists, have been given the status of serious news.
During the unfortunate Monica Lewinsky business, Woody would fight to take pictures or shoot video amid a massive, swirling sea of cameras, many of which belonged to the networks and news organizations that would routinely and, in Woody’s eyes, hypocritically point the finger at the supposedly lower-than-low paparazzi.”