The Pictures Worth 4 Million Smackeroos

"I wouldn't buy them [for $4 million]," said editor David Perel. He said the last time the Enquirer paid seven figures for baby pictures was in 1997, when the tabloid purchased photographs of pop star Michael Jackson's first child, Prince.

Thomas Kunkel, dean of the University of Maryland's journalism school, cast the issue not as a narrow ethical matter but as a question of journalistic priorities at a time when many news organizations are cutting back on their budgets.

"It's kind of an interesting and unfortunate commentary on what we value in our society today," he said. "I certainly hope that baby is healthy and well, but, c'mon, four million dollars!"

"Is it a great business decision? Yeah, it's probably a super business decision. But when the editors of Time Inc." -- which owns People -- "get up in the morning, can they look at themselves in the mirror? I wouldn't be able to."

But Kelly McBride, an ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists, was neither surprised nor shocked at People's decision.

Magazines such as People regularly pay extraordinary sums to paparazzi for celebrity pictures, and the first unauthorized photo of the Pitt-Jolie baby would have commanded millions in a bidding war anyway, McBride said.

"Someone was going to make a profit out of this," she said. Pitt and Jolie "just said, 'Let's take control of this ourselves.' They figured out a way to intervene in a negative, vulturistic, nasty process that is created by the demand for these photos. They saw a way to make something good come out of it" since they have promised to donate the proceeds to charity.

McBride would get an amen from some other folks in the celebrity biz.

"I have a lot of A-list stars like Britney Spears, and they have been hounded by press. . . . They can make hundreds of thousands by selling the photos, so sure, why not give [the money] away to people who really need it," said Leslie Sloane Zelnik of Baker Winokur Ryder Public Relations.

"It's basically the celebrity controlling the outcome and that's great. . . . It's their chance to get back their control and great, good for them."

Zelnik said one of her clients is about to have a baby and is working on a deal to sell the pictures and donate the money to a foundation that deals with issues such as rape and domestic abuse.

In a world where "everyone has picked up a camera and can shoot celebs all day," selling wedding and baby pictures is more proactive, she said.

Her client Spears sold pictures of her child to People, she said, then donated the money for hurricane relief.

The practice of celebrities selling their pictures developed a few years ago with wedding photos, she said, and now selling the pictures to benefit charity is a great twist.

"It's a way to get it out there and keep the family safe" from aggressive photographers, she said.