Paparazzi hassles Yalies to exploit Bush

COURTESY NATIONAL ENQUIRER The 'National Enquirer' has approached students, attempting to bribe them for dirt on Barbara Bush.

"Beer. Hunky guys. The hot Mexican sun. Tequila shots—lots of them. It was a recipe for disaster for the 19-year-old Yale University freshman." Imagine that...your embarrassing drunken spring break stories glaring at you from the cover of the National Enquirer. It's almost as disturbing as that dream where you go to class and you realize that you're completely naked and everyone is staring at you.

But for Barbara Bush, DC '04, this isn't a bad dream. And the picture on the cover was not, in fact, taken at a wild party in Mexico, but at an inauguration event. The headline to the article, on the cover of today's National Enquirer, reads, "Prez's Daughter in Spring Break Booze Binge."

For the most part, the press has been kind to Bush and her twin sister, Jenna, and respected their privacy. However, recently, a photo of "President Bush's wild daughter Jenna at a booze-swilling college fraternity bash," graced the cover of the National Enquirer. The story alleges that her "boyfriend" was arrested for drunk driving and then was released soon after he revealed that he was a friend of Jenna's.

Now the attention is on Barbara. And it seems as if reporters will do anything to get a juicy story about her—even if it means harassing Yale students. "I left my keys in my room and I was standing outside of my dorm waiting to be let in," Ryan Taylor, DC '04, said. "All of a sudden these strange people started talking to me. They asked me if I knew `Ms. Bush' and asked if I had any pictures of her partying. When I said I didn't, a woman gave me her card, which said she was from the National Enquirer and told me, `If you get any pictures of her, give me a call. We could help pay next year's tuition for you.'" It didn't even cross his mind to call her back. Taylor said, "I wouldn't want someone to do that to me."

Nicholas Zamiska, DC '04, a friend of Bush's, received a phone call from National Enquirer reporter Kevin Lynch, who was looking for scandalous gossip on the first daughter. "He asked me for pictures of Barbara, and I said that I couldn't help him," Zamiska said. I told him that he would simply have to find someone with less allegiance to Barbara. He told me that someone was eventually going to come forward with pictures, so why shouldn't it be me? Why shouldn't I be the one to profit? He was incredibly manipulative. He offered me a large sum of money and told me, `We're not the mafia, but we can get cash wired in a jiffy.'"

In spite of the tantalizing offer, Zamiska did not cave in. "It was easy to say `no.' It's really sad that his profession consists of exploiting people. He called what he does `checkbook journalism,'" Zamiska remembered. "I asked him why he does this, and he said, `I like the travel and the money—that's why I'm willing to sacrifice some of my morals, I guess.' Even so, he apparently feels `bad' doing this kind of story. He told me that he called 80 kids here at Yale and apparently no one gave him pictures. It's nice to know that people did not sell their friend out."

Barbara, too, is happy that, to her knowledge, no one at Yale said anything to the reporters and told Zamiska that the only thing to do is laugh about it.

Zamiska added, "The truly sad thing is that there exists such a market for this sort of thing. Consumers demand it, and Lynch peddles it."

The New Haven Register also published a sensational front page piece on Bush, "President's Daughter Enjoying Social Life at Yale," which focuses on a night at Toad's when Bush had her ID confiscated [NHR 1/20/01]. The article contained quotes from various "anonymous Yale freshmen," who said things like, "Every time I have seen her, she has been partying,"

Mary O' Leary, city editor at the New Haven Register, admitted, "This was only newsworthy because of who Barbara is. We wanted a `How's the first daughter doing at Yale?' kind of story, and we knew about the Toad's incident. Basically we wanted a one shot little look about how she was doing at Yale."

So how does Yale deal with the paparazzi? According to Tom Violante, assistant director of Public Affairs, "People who come to Yale with any kind of photography equipment must get permission from the Office of Public Affairs. We want to protect the privacy of all our students—whether they're famous or not famous. This is a private campus—anyone not a member of the Yale community is usually escorted off campus." If someone calls wanting information on any Yale student, Violante said, "All we can do is confirm whether that student is enrolled at, attended, or graduated from Yale. That's all we are allowed to say."

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