By Silvana Blanca Velasco San Martin
Freelance Journalist
Lima, Peru

On October 16, 2008, Magaly Medina, a Peruvian entertainment journalist and anchor of the nighttime TV program "Magaly TV", famous for her "scandals" which local viewers call "ampays" (a Quechua word meaning "red-handed"), was imprisoned for defamation, after losing a judicial fight against the soccer player Paolo Guerrero. 

To sum up the battle, in November of 2007, the night before a qualifying match for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa between Peru and Brazil, Guerrero - one of the principal players - left a party with a model, they say, at dawn. Photos prove that they left together, but the inability to verify the exact time at which the images were captured sealed Medina's fate and locked her up for three months. 

The photos were real, but the time proved to be her Waterloo, because Medina said they were taken at two in the morning and Guererro's defense said that they left at ten or eleven pm. What the journalist wanted to prove was that the athlete, instead of properly concentrating on the next day's game, distracted himself and that is why his performance during the match was horrible and we lost. 

You may think "Soccer players don't belong to the world of showbusiness", but in my country, Peru, they do. Many are linked with cabaret stars, dancers, and models in almost always scandalous romances. They go out to dance clubs, drink in excess and more than one has had problems with the police. And it's Magaly Medina's program that spreads the videos, from the least favorable angle, of course. 

Its his private life, without a doubt. But do we journalists have a right to interfere and divulge the scandalous actions of celebrities? Is it ok that there are programs that dedicate themselves solely to this purpose, and that the protagonists often lend themselves to the scandals in search of fame? 

Such is the case with the program "Magaly TV." So Medina, who was seized for defamation, is on the air again after her liberation and continues to do the same thing, although a bit more cautiously. But, there are two sides to the coin. On one side are the artists and athletes: do they really have a private life or must they be 100% on display without the slightest bit of privacy? And secondly: if we limit the presence of these kinds of programs, will we truly be attacking freedom of expression? 

The response is complicated. As a journalist I believe that artists are not obligated to expose themselves entirely, except if they want to do so and are given the platform. But it's also this excessive ambition for notoriety that pushes them to tell all and expose themselves to anything to garner attention. 

And this is where Medina's program fits perfectly. She welcomes them to her set, exposes them to ridicule and makes fun of them, protecting herself by asserting "this is what people like". But I disagree, because in Peru as in many countries, entertainment journalism can develop with standards and class, gliding elegantly over rumors without destroying honor, and without packing each broadcast with them. 

There are quality Peruvian productions that only hope for an opportunity to show themselves. These, disseminated with professionalism, gain a public and create much-needed honorable work, without those awful scandals that do us more harm than good.