Is the celebrity press approaching a Joseph Welch moment?

Welch was the Army attorney who put a stake through McCarthyism with his famous "Have you no sense of decency?" outburst. Now a growing chorus of voices is demanding the same of People, Us Weekly, TMZ, and all the other outlets that trade on the private lives of public figures -- even figures who are medically incapable of defending themselves.

The catalyst for this is, appropriately enough, someone whose rise to fame ushered in the current era of tabloid insanity: Britney Spears. Writing in the Los Angeles Times last week, Asra Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and People contributor, argued that the time has come for organizations with any pretensions to responsibility must stop chasing Spears, who is widely reported to be suffering from serious mental illness.

"By exploiting Spears' moment of vulnerability, media companies have crossed the line of basic moral decency," wrote Nomani, whose brother was diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder. "Enough. Time Warner Inc. (parent of CNN, People, AOL and Entertainment Weekly), News Corp. (the Rupert Murdoch firm that owns Fox News and papers around the globe) and others should halt all coverage of Spears until she is healthy. Let's leave Britney and her family alone."

Underscoring her conviction, Nomani also noted that she had told her editor at People she could no longer write for the magazine.

Since publishing the op-ed, Nomani says, she has gotten numerous letters of support, some from readers who are living with their own mental illnesses. She is sending out the article to officials at the companies mentioned in it, and has already reached out to TMZ but not received a response.

I emailed the editors of several celebrity magazines to see what they thought of Nomani's argument and whether they'd ever consider abiding by a moratorium on covering Spears as long as she remains ill. Larry Hackett, managing editor of People, was willing to discuss it, saying the question of how to approach the story has been a major topic of discussion at his magazine recently. (The editors of Us Weekly and Star haven't responded.)

"The degree to which the media is woven into this saga is something I've never seen before," he says. "You have to be extra sensitive, because the fact is the media is in this extraordinary role in the middle of her life. This is something out of The Day of the Locust."

That said, Hackett rules out a Britney blackout, for multiple reasons. The first is practical: Not covering something is simply not in the nature of the press. "I don't know of any examples where the media unilaterally says 'We will not cover this because we feel it's invasive.' I just don't know of any case where that's happened and where it's worked out."

And even if the press did back off, it might not make a difference. "There an assumption in that that if we stopped covering Britney Spears, she'd get healthy. That seems to me a little presumptuous and a little sanctimonious."

Presumptuous especially because, for all the reporting out there on Spears' mental state, she still has people on her payroll insisting she's sound of mind. "I know I'm being a strict constructionist here," says Hackett, "but if the people who are representing her are saying her father should get away and she should be allowed to do what she wants, I don't know how you can contradict that."

On their own, such points are perfectly sound. But taken together, don't they add up to an excuse to continue a course that could very well, as Jon Friedman notes, end with the tabloid press serving as an accomplice to Spears's early death?

And even if that doesn't come to pass, don't Time Warner et al have an ethical obligation not to take advantage of her illness? After all, it's one thing for the paparazzi to hound someone who chooses to court their attention; it's another for them to prey on someone who is literally incapable of making choices for herself.

I would say they do have such an obligation. Hackett says otherwise, but deserves credit for grappling thoughtfully with the question.

"I understand the human impulse to look away," he says. "I'm certainly not going to hide behind a blanket defense of 'the public has a right to know.' But I think she's an individual of interest to our readers, and I think the story she's going through is something we can cover responsibly, at least at this stage, without knowingly and unquestionably contributing to her mental illness."

Related: The Britney-Industrial Complex