So far this summer, the paparazzi have made a tidy living off the Gosselin family, racking up money each time Jon hops on his ATV or Kate takes a whack at the kids. But now the race is on for the first picture of South Carolina governor (for now) Mark Sanford’s Argentinian mistress Maria Belen Chapur. The first photo will mean newsstand gold (or a traffic bonanza) for whatever outlet tracks it down — and, possibly, ponies up.

Exclusive pictures of Jennifer Lopez’s twins doubled the web traffic for People magazine the day they went up. After shelling out $4.1 million for the first photo of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, the first child to actually emerge from the womb of earth-mother Angelina Jolie, People saw its newsstand sales spike to 2.3 million (from an average of 1.5 million).

Political mistresses (and love-children) have historically been a tougher “get,” since celebrities have developed more sophisticated ways of handling the tabloid press — largely by cooperating with them. Jolie, Lopez and other have been able to maintain tight control over their images by selling pre-packaged photos directly to a single publication or distributing pictures widely to avoid a high-impact “Exclusive!” Politicians mid-scandal are not so lucky.

The New York Times was the first to get hold of a photo of Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the call girl whose encounter with New York governor Eliot Spitzer ruined his career and brought the newspaper a Pulitzer prize. Gawker tracked down her MySpace page and gathered other photos from the Web, ultimately publishing a “definitive gallery” of the aspiring hip-hop star, who’s since gotten very into yoga. The New York Post landed an especially provocative stack of shots. “Girls Gone Wild” chief Joe Francis offered Dupre $1 million to appear nude in a video and a magazine spread before finding earlier photos of her in his own collection.

After a spy-movie style stakeout at the Beverly Hilton, the National Enquirer broke the story and published the first pictures of former Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards’ mistress Rielle Hunter and the baby many suspect as his. Just yesterday, “Inside Edition” landed the first picture of Nevada senator John Ensign’s alleged mistress Cindy Hampton, a snapshot from a 2001 high school reunion that neatly shows Ensign, his wife Darlene, Hampton and her husband Doug.

Paparazzi have descended on Buenos Aires since the story broke, with many camped out in front of Chapur’s apartment building across the street from the zoo. The comely brunette and supposed marathon-runner is a 43-year-old mother of two. It’s only a matter of time before we get a look at her.


source : http://blogs.wsj.com