The Pictures Worth 4 Million Smackeroos

By Bravetta Hassell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 10, 2006

People magazine isn't saying much about the deal it made that landed Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's new little bundle, Shiloh Nouvel, on its cover.

As you may have heard by now, the magazine reportedly paid more than $4 million to be the first to run pictures of the duo's daughter in North America. And though its managing editor, Larry Hackett, would not confirm the price tag for the rights to the photographs, he didn't hesitate to do a little chest-thumping about the coup.

"Readers expected People to have those pictures of personal moments," Hackett said. "I want readers out there to know . . . that they can come to us."

But if you publish such pricey pictures, will the gawkers come?

A spokesman for People said yesterday it's too early to measure newsstand sales of the issue, which hit the racks yesterday. The publication did raise the price on the weekly, however, from its usual $3.49 to $3.99. The magazine's Web site received 25 million hits Thursday, Hackett said, calling the response "beyond avid."

The money shelled out for the pictures will be donated to several charities, according to Hackett and a statement released by the couple, whose daughter was born in the south African country of Namibia on May 27.

The money will go to "various charities in Africa dedicated to children's welfare," Hackett said, though he said he did not know which ones.

Bridget Russel, spokeswoman for Getty Images, the agency that shot the photos and handled the bidding, said the arrangement was the first on that scale for the company. Other bidders included celebrity publications OK! magazine and Us Weekly. Hello! magazine won the British rights for the photos.

Pitt and Jolie also sold pictures for charity in April, Russel says. Photographs of the couple in Kenya were sold to Us Weekly, though Russel would not say for how much.

"While we celebrate the joy of the birth of our daughter, we recognize that two million babies born every year in the developing world die on the first day of their lives," the couple said in a statement Monday. "These children can be saved, but only if governments around the world make it a priority."

Jolie, a U.N. goodwill ambassador, has often leveraged her fame to draw attention to humanitarian issues.

But $4 million for baby pictures? Even the National Enquirer, which routinely pays for information, scoffed.

"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.