The president’s love life

QUESTIONS ABOUT the news trade, as practiced both universally and in this country, are put to me quite often—usually by email and by students and now and then by practitioners themselves. I have decided to reproduce in this column some of the exchanges provoked by them (sometimes re-edited, in which case the changes are indicated). So here goes the first such reproduction:

Q. What degree of prominence should a newspaper give to stories about P-Noy’s love life?

A. It depends. There shouldn’t be any hard and fast rule on what play a type of story should get. Play for every story is decided in relation to, indeed in competition with, every other story in the harvest for the day. At any rate, one basic question has to be asked even before such a story is considered for publication: How does it affect the public interest? Of course, I’m taking the issue in the context of serious journalism [—which seems to me journalism properly is, making anything less serious something else].

Q. Is the…president’s love life a matter of national interest that needs to be reported by the media? What are the circumstances, if any, that justify media’s prying [into] and reporting [on] a public official’s private life?

A. Yes, the president’s love life is a matter of public interest; it is [after all] about a relationship that by nature is characterized by a level of intimacy bound to affect all facets of the partners’ lives—in the president’s case, his exercise of state power and national leadership. If the president…dates a crook or, worse, marries one, how can it not be news?

Q. [Were] the media justified in providing a blow-by-blow account of the president’s love life?

A. [The] editors who allow[ed] it should be able to justify their decision: After all, a love-struck president is definitely a president to watch—he’s vulnerable; he may even be a little crazy.

Q. Where do we draw the line between what aspects of a public official’s private life can be reported on and what cannot?

A. All aspects of [any] public official’s life are potentially fair media subjects. A general line, in any case, cannot be drawn; a decision [has to be] made in every case.

Q. To what extent does the public need to know about the private life of a public official?

A. To the extent that it affects, or even simply threatens to affect,…a community.

Q. Are there any guidelines that govern…reportage of a public official’s love life?

A. None that I know of, none that I think necessary.

Q. What journalistic principles are compromised when the media become too aggressive or gossipy in their coverage of his love life?

A. [Every principle is compromised, I imagine, though in particular] principles governing fair play and sense of proportion—[a sense all lost to] exaggeration, misrepresentation, and sensationalism [—cases of malpractice not uncommon hereabouts].