A paparazzo has listed all the reasons why it was absolutely fine to stalk Lisa Wilkinson and her solo margarita.

This past week we got a masterclass in all the excuses paparazzi use to justify their existence. 

Straight from the horse's mouth, in fact.

On Thursday, on a blog that Mamamia will not encourage with a link, the photographer who stood outside the Melbourne restaurant - by his own admission, out of sight - and photographed Lisa Wilkinson eating wrote her an Open Letter.

Need to catch up? Here goes:

Calling out The Daily Mail for being problematic is not a productive exercise. 

It’s like complaining that your sieve has holes in it. 

It’s kind of the point. 

Nobody goes to the Mail for anything other than the most salacious take on any topic you choose, from the war in Ukraine to what Dom from MAFS wore to the supermarket. And gossip. Lots and lots of gossip.

Celebrity gossip magazines have largely disappeared - but the appetite to know other people’s business has not. It just changed locations. And the Daily Mail’s “Sidebar Of Shame” has been where we go to indulge. And gossip is, ultimately, problematic. It feels great, but it almost always comes at someone else's expense. 

In an era of fourth-wave feminism where we are hyper-aware of self-determination and consent, we are wrestling hard with the ethics of gossip. On one hand, we know the way women are portrayed by sites like The Mail is always one-dimensional, often damaging and untrue. 

On the other, we are still social animals who trade information for status, we still enjoy rubber-necking at other people's lives and, after a decade or so of air-brushed Instagram perfection, nosying behind the filters and facetune has never been more appealing. 

Demand, meet supply. And so we're at the Daily Mail. And the sieve. 

But the things we click on matter. And this past week, a story blew up and out of the Sidebar of Shame that illustrates the ethical battleground of the Mail, gossip and the paparazzi economy perfectly. 

Listen to Mamamia Out Loud, Mamamia’s podcast with what women are talking about this week. Post continues below.

I don't want to alarm you, but. 

Lisa Wilkinson went out to dinner. 

By herself. 

And ordered a drink. 

I know.

The newsworthiness knows no bounds. A grown-up woman answers emails while eating broccoli and drinking a margarita. 

The legendary journalist was not kissing someone else's husband. She was not shaving her legs at the table. She was not throwing things at the waitstaff or loudly badmouthing famous colleagues.

She was sitting, and eating. And working. 

And the Daily Mail ran the pictures, along with a story describing the photos, and suggested that "Lisa Wilkinson cut a lonely figure..." and Lisa Wilkinson was annoyed. 

And she said so. 

Because unlike in the heydays of the gossip magazines, now the hunted get to call out the hunters. 

Wilkinson posted on Instagram:

"Here’s to women everywhere being able to happily - and safely - take themselves out to dinner after a long day to do some work, plough through a few dozen emails, text friends, have a cheeky cocktail, eat broccoli (because, hey, greens!), catch up on some reading, wear clothes, tuck their hair behind one ear, and place a white napkin on their lap in peace…without worrying about being shamed or judged or dissected or made to feel totally violated by some old creepy guy secretly taking pictures designed to make you look sad and lonely…when you’re actually having a great night, doing EXACTLY what you want to be doing, and with EXACTLY the person you want to be with.

In peace. Minding your own business. Not hurting anyone.

Yeah, just sayin’…" 

Fair enough, too. It's happened before. Famous woman expresses her displeasure at being treated like an animal at the zoo, observed and commented on from afar by paying customers at no benefit to her whatsoever. 

Then what happens is we all spend a minute considering whether we really want our valuable eyeballs to be supporting this toxic economy, and then we move on with our lives. 

Except. This time, the pap bit back. 

The photographer's words perfectly illustrate the logic that those in the gossip industry (full disclosure, I worked in it for years, so I am pretty familiar) have always been used to justify their stalking and prying. 

"Lisa," he wrote. "You claim to be an intensely private person, but you have an Instagram account where you post about the dress you wore, the shiny new hair do, being proud of your daughter. Private stuff."

He went on to say that like another high-profile woman he's been criticised for harassing, Lisa "lives in front of the camera, but when I point one at her, treats it like it's a molotov cocktail." 

He suggested that because Wilkinson interviews celebrities on The Project, they are basically doing the same job, in the same business (blatantly ignoring the glaring difference in consent), and that perhaps she owes him an apology for referring to him, when he was loitering outside the restaurant taking pictures of her, as a "creepy old man". 

"I'm actually ten years younger than you," he wrote, revealing a great deal about himself in the process. 

When I worked in gossip magazines, our justification was basically that the famous people loved the publicity. Needed it, actually. And that also, they got handsomely rewarded for being dehumanised. 

One of my favourite editors used to say, "Brad Pitt doesn't get paid $20million a movie because he is the world's greatest actor." 

Her point being, the money is compensation for the fame. That celebrities crave success and notoriety. They try exceptionally hard to get it. I used to go around saying, "No-one gets famous by accident" - (which is patently untrue). The subtext is clear - they knew what they were getting into. 

Whether it's Lisa, or Brad, or any public person, it all really boils down to one basic excuse: They were asking for it. 

Why go to a restaurant at all? Why sit near a window? Why be so recognisable? Why walk down the street? Why go to that party? Why walk your kid to school? Why turn up to that opening? 

If you didn't want to be photographed. 

The paparazzo is saying, You share your life, so I can, too. 

But we're smarter than that, now. 

Cautionary tale has piled on cautionary tale - from Princess Diana to Britney Spears to Meghan Markle - and the message is finally being receieved. This level of harassment ruins lives and devastates mental health. 

And also, we get it now. 

In an Instagram age, we're all brands now, to some extent, choosing what to share, choosing what to withhold, knowing that images and stories about us can be weapons in the hands on another, who seeks to exploit. A former lover who wants to humiliate. A frenemy who's looking to stir the pot. A screen-grab of a poorly-chosen word that your boss should never, ever see. 

We understand what ownership of our own stories looks like. And we recognise it being taken from others. 

We get now, that we should own our own stories. That we want to choose what's public and what's private. And that taking that choice from someone is objectifying in a way that's bad for all of us. 

At Mamamia, we have never participated in the paparazzi economy. We know that behind the pictures that we (I) used to lap up of celebrity couples and famous people's kids and stars doing what they shouldn't is abuse. Harassment. Men with cameras shouting into toddlers' faces, shooting up skirts, following women home and yes, loitering outside restaurants trying to snap an unflattering forkful. 

That "open letter" from the photographer to Lisa Wilkinson reads like the whiny death throes of a dinosaur. 

One who doesn't understand his irrelevancy. 

One who truly believes that women who want to some control over their lives are troublesome and need taking down a peg or two.

And while we're at it, a dinosaur who doesn't get that an image of a woman enjoying a solo dinner is not pitiful, but downright inspirational. 

Remember, what you click on, matters.

Feature Image: Instagram / @lisa_wilkinson