E! News co-anchor Giuliana Rancic just announced that E! Entertainment (DStv 124) and E! News is backing down and backing off from showing and featuring paparazzi photos and images of celebrities' kids taken without parental consent.
It follows after a meeting today between E! Entertainment and Hollywood star Kirsten Bell after she refused to do interviews with media outlets and boycotted E! News and People magazine for showing paparazzi photos of her baby.
The entertainment news show Entertainment Tonight which was seen in South Africa on SABC3 and lasted only one season, already agreed to no longer show images of celebrities' kids taken by paparazzi and for which it doesn't have the parent's consent.
According to Kirsten Bell who shamed E! News and People by refusing to do any press, small children of celebrities are followed, yelled at, taunted and having their privacy invaded as paparazzi try to elicit a reaction for photos.
"We here at E! met with Kristen Bell today," said Giuliana Rancic. "Great, great meeting. She has been trying to get photographers to stop going after kids with their cameras and harassing them. So many of these photographers have been using this very aggressive manner that is very frightening to small kids".
"So Kristen Bell as a new mom, she feels very passionate about this. In our meeting we told her we've always been considerate about that. We've always been committed to never showing pictures of kids being harassed. So we want you to know you will not see that on our show, you will never see that online".
"We've always been on board, but we wanted to mention this because we're going to be increasing our efforts because Kirsten Bell gave personal examples of how bad its become for kids."
"Of course if celebrity parents are out and they want to share their photos from Instagram or Twitter, of if they're on the red carpet, of course we'll show those photos to you, our viewers. Those are meant to be shared".
"As a mom of an 18 month old, I was in a Mommy-and-Me class and there was someone taking pictures and pretending they were taking pictures of their kids. And then I saw they were taking pictures of Duke! And you feel so violated," said Giuliana Rancic. "I was ready to get all Italian crazy on her."
"I love sharing pictures of Duke, putting him out there on Instagram. That is fine. But it is startling when photographers come over and they're taking pictures of your baby and its scary. We support Kirsten Bell's efforts and we're so happy to continue to be on board with this".
In an open letter now published on eonline, Suzanne Kolb, president of E! Entertainment, writes that "after meeting with Kirsten Bell, we appreciate even more how out of hand the pursuit of child images has gotten and vow to be a leader in taking a stand against it".
"Here at E! we share the concerns of all parents to protect children and are committed to heightening our efforts to ensure that we never support or encourage the targeting of children. We will not feature photos of children that were taken without parental consent".
"We also feel a deep responsibility to both the celebrities that we cover, as well as our viewers and readers, and take pride in our balanced approach and credible reporting," writes Suzanne Kolb.
