The Private lives of Public People

After the Della Bosca 'scandal' the ABC discussed the topic on the program The World Today.Here is an extract:

ELEANOR HALL: Professor Stephan Millet, are we seeing a heightened moralism as Catharine Lumby puts it – or do public figures forfeit their right to private lives?

STEPHAN MILLET: No they don't forfeit their right to a private life. I'm not quite sure whether there is a heightened moralism operating. I think it's partly a reflection of the media's ability to tell this story very quickly. It's an age-old story and they can tell it 25 words if they need to and still get it reasonably right.

So there's a sense that the story is an easy one to tell, and it's an easy one to tell in small words in big type on the front page.

ELEANOR HALL: So staying with you Professor Millet, is it a media frenzy or does the public really care about these things?

STEPHAN MILLET: It's both. The public do care. I mean we heard from the people in the street, there are mixed views on what they care about: should it remain private? Does it reflect on his ability to do the job? And you can say, well he's made a bad decision or a poor decision and in his own words he has to cop the consequences of that.

And I suppose it opens up the question more generally: what other poor decisions is he making under pressure.

ELEANOR HALL: What do you think Professor Tiffen? Is this just a media frenzy, and have times changed? I mean, there's a long history of journalists not publishing personal details when they clearly know about affairs.

ROD TIFFEN: Yes there is a long history of that. But there is also a long history of them publishing. Normally they need a public-interest angle. The public-interest angle in this case is almost non-existent.

He walked past, he got this lady to walk past a security guard without signing her in. My guess is that happens 10 or 20 time every day in Federal Parliament and the state somehow still survives.

The impact on the public role here is quite minimal. But one of the things that's changed is that politicians don't just sell themselves as competent performers as a public role, they sell their whole persona, they say I am a wonderful person, trustworthy, altruistic et cetera, et cetera; a warm human being with a wonderful family life.

And once you sort of make that part of your public pitch for election, the line between public role and private life becomes increasingly blurred and problematic.


To view the complete transcript visit http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2009/s2673316.htm

As I was listening to this I realised that the Della Bosca scandal is only the corner of a much larger issue. As Hall says, "do public figures forfeit their right to a private life?" Tiffen's answer is simple, "once you sort of make that part of your public pitch for election, the line between public role and private life becomes increasingly blurred and problematic". In other words once you sell your image as part of the product you offer expect anything that would diminish this product to be of the public interest.
Now this seems fairly straight forward, yet who defines the product and who defines the interest, as Hill asks about the media frenzy it seems it is the media that decides what will be on the agenda.

This week Woman's Day featured a frail looking Angelina Jolie with the text, 'Starving for Brad's attention', Take Five had a young boy with the line, 'Scarred for life at a Sleepover', Women's Weekly had a photo of Tracey Grimshaw saying, 'Tracey on Ramsay and Gay and Who, well Who speaks for itself. Here we have an actress who sells her 'product' as being an adequate actor, not a relationship councillor which means this story is NOT in the public interest. Then we have a boy of no public interest, who is not a public figure and whose story is neither timely, nor absurd or shocking (no news value at all in fact). We have a news host discussing gayness, something which she as a heterosexual has no authority to discuss and finally we have a magazine completely devoted to the private lives of public figures. So what do we take from this?
Yes this form of journalism must be what some audience members want, because otherwise these magazines would not sell. While Hill and Tiffen can debate the wrongs and rights of what should be private in the end there is no one to police such things. If there was this policing body would spend most of their time arguing over what should and shouldn't be printed. So while we cannot stop these things from being printed we can choose whether or not to believe what we read and whether or not we judge the people involved.

What is your view, please share in discussion via the comment option...