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Paparazzi, who mostly photograph outside clubs and of people in the public eye, 'celebrities', have nothing to do with photographers like Gary Winogrand, Joel Meyerowitz and other serious street photographers would be very out of context, so I am sure that's not what you mean...
Is it not the 'mass public' that idolize the idiots that get photographed by Pap's?... if not for the dumbed down culture of today buying Hello every week and the rags that used to be informed newspapers... there would be no need for Pap's... however, to compare them to people that just fancy taking a shot of a homeless person etc may be close to the truth... some have morals, some don't... that's the human race. Why should a photographer with a moral code and empathy for the society around them be punished or held in the same low esteem as an idiot with a 10 mega pixel camera phone snapping from a emotional distance and from the hip?
Personally, in a street context, if I make an individual the main focus of a shot, I've always entered in a dialogue with them, mostly because I am interested in them, as a human being... and I've gone on to become friendly with many, many people through photography... as I always let them know, I make shots to tell their story... and not tell mine. If ever anyone has said "No, I don't fancy that mate"... it goes with out saying that's been totally cool... though in that instance, I think those shots are no longer true street photography... as I have entered into a dialogue before the shot... sometimes *after* a shot has been taken I've been asked what I have been doing... and that's an easy explanation with a smile and a quick show of the shot if I have used a digital and not film camera...
Everyone that I have ever taken a photo of, apart from my partner, was a stranger to me until I approached them... so to me, street is just an extension of approaching an individual and asking to make some portraits... but I see street as much more informal and about moment and moment that's been seen and captured... not arranged by the photographer... street is something that can't be orchestrated or set-up... so for it to retain its essence, it has to have a space between the photographer and the moment and people in front of the lens.
Not to forget that a lot of street work has no people in it at all... a lot is abstract and found situations... taking street shots though, where people are not always the central focus or a body of people, a crowd, or a person walking past, the relationship between urban architecture and people, or something capturing the state of a city any where in the world to be some thing that's of low moral code... I don't follow that train of thought at all...
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