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  • From: B <beeline AT mindspring.com>
  • To: InterNetWorkers <internetworkers AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Searching the cache and privacy
  • Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 19:52:02 -0400


Dallas Smith wrote:
>
> Wouldn't it be the "ethical" journalist's responsibility to say that the
> unrelated information doesn't need to be published, not the police? If I
> were writing a story about your murder, and it's obvoius that the gay porn

> websites are not related in any way, I would think I would leave that out of
> the story, because it's private and unrelated. I don't think I can be sued
> for inflicting emotional distress on you since you're dead, but I think your
> family can sue for emotional distress on them. Maybe I'm mixing up privacy
> and libel.
>
> Another thing that bugs me is that if it weren't for the connection that
> Chandra had to the senator, we wouldn't even know about this. She would be
> just another missing girl on the other side of the country...
>

Actually, it is journalistic responsibility to publish all of what the
reporter lawfully finds out with a very few narrow exceptions.
(Realistically, actual publication depends on the space available, which
depends on the news worthiness of the story.) The core of ethics in U.S.
journalism concerns truth and accuracy, not value judgments of a moral
or cultural nature.*

When you're talking about people in the news (as opposed to corporate or
government information), journalists get into trouble when they use
illegal methods to get the story (stealing telephone tapes, for
example), publish lies with a malicious intent to injure someone, or
publish private information about a non-public person.

This last one is the issue you've raised. It's a prickly problem because
it can be so very subjective. Most of us start out as private persons,
so the question is: when exactly does a private person becomes a public
person? Elected and public officials are public persons by choice, and
so are fair game. The infamous become public persons generally because
they do something that is a matter of public record. It's all gray area
beyond this.

Actors and actresses, novelists and artists, etc. are public persons
because, by definition, they need that fame to make a living doing their
chosen professions. They sometimes claim a "private" part of their
lives, but this generally doesn't wash with either courts or the public.
Of course, the famous can become fanatic about their privacy and cut off
the flow of information -- no information, no story. So, intensely
private public persons who do not wish to be a topic of news stories
guard their privacy and stay out of the public eye and public records
(court, birth, marriage, etc.). Think J.D. Salinger & George Harrison.

When you are talking about an individual who is connected to but removed
from the public person -- for example, an elected official's family
members, friends, lovers, etc. -- the decision to publish certain
information is up to the subjective judgment of the journalist. In
general, the closer folks are to public persons, the less they get to be
"private" persons. Again, the test tends to be public record; serious
journalists generally won't report about the mayor's son unless the son
does something to warrant mention in an open record, such as present a
petition to city council or get caught driving drunk, or does something
under the public eye, such as score the winning touchdown for the home
team or join the G-8 protests.

Once a story featuring a private person breaks -- once they've been
included in a news report as a matter of public record or public eye --
they lose a bit of their private status. If that person continues to get
into news articles, they can very well become a public person in spite
of their own wishes. If Monica lives to be 120, there will be news
stories linking her to Clinton when she dies, in addition to the
standard death notice (itself a matter of public record). It's like
being a virgin: she'll never be able to announce, "I'm a private person
now," and expect her life once again to be safe from public scrutiny.
Every time she shows up in a public place or public record, she's
noticed. She's a public person because she made the decision to become
embroiled with a married elected official and then they got caught.

If the closet gay person in your example is not a public person and has
no connection to a public person, his sexual orientation would not be
part of the story (which would itself be brief, no more than a notice,
because, frankly, he isn't necessarily newsworthy). If his family pushed
for publicity, as Chandra's family has done, the reporter would probably
oblige them. However, once they opened that door, they would not be able
to easily cut off the information -- they supported the "outing" of
their father, whatnot, into a public personality, and once he's
there.... In this case, I would publish the sites he visited if I got
that from the police; not only is it a part of the police investigation,
publicity is one of the ways that law enforcement gets leads. How could
I as a reporter know that the gay porn sites were unrelated? Perhaps
this guy had a gay lover who may have killed him, or first met his
murderer in a chat room. It would be too bad about the family's hurt
feelings; however, facts trump pretty much everything else in the news
world, including sentiment and old-fashioned respect.

Unfortunately, no one knows what is pertinent in the general rush of a
news day, and journalists don't have the luxury of waiting for a few
decades to gather and cull all of the information that tells the full
story. They have to rely on their news sense as well as an understanding
of the difference between public and private persons to decide what to
publish right now. Remember, Watergate began with just a little
burglary.

"B"

(Who says: Always consider the source of your information, including the
source's source.)

* I was a newspaper editor/reporter for ten years, and journalism was my
first and most beloved career. My body left the business, not my soul. I
am among the last of the generations of newspapermen -- that's a
genderless use, BTW -- to be trained by a hometown editor in a hometown
family-owned daily; I started on the obituary desk, and worked up from
there. I also have a BA in Journalism. I am conservative in regards to
the fourth estate, and do not approve of either "advocacy journalism"
(that's what opinion pages are for) or corporate ownership of vast
swaths of the news media.


> Just my $.02,
> Dallas
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Wagoner" <dbwagoner AT yahoo.com>
> To: "InterNetWorkers" <internetworkers AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> Sent: Monday, July 23, 2001 11:51 AM
> Subject: [internetworkers] RE: internetworkers digest: July 21, 2001
>
> > That's an interesting argument, but I don't feel the
> > same way.
> >
> > Let's say, for example, that I am a married man with
> > children and I get murdered. Let's also assume that I
> > am a closet homosexual and frequently look at gay porn
> > on the web but I have not revealed any of this to
> > family or friends. Now, if I am murdered then the
> > authorities can perform an autopsy on my body
> > searching for murder clues but they wouldn't know
> > about my gay tendencies. However, if they searched my
> > computer they would certainly find out and most likely
> > leak private information that I did not want
> > publicized. That's where I see a distinction in the
> > privacy issue- searching my body is different than
> > searching my mind (i.e., my computer in this case).
> >
> >
> > david
>
> ---
> Come and play at the InterNetWorkers Web site!
> http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/
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--
"B"ing mobile
=====================================
I always have more questions
Thank you in advance for your answers
=====================================
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