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Journalistic Integrity (Friday, January 13 - 3rd period)

"Good morning, boys and girls. Sign in as you enter," Rita greeted her students.

"'"The power to withhold the facts of government is the power to destroy that government,'" she recited. "That's from your House of Representatives' Committee Report on Freedom of Information, in 1976. What do you think that quote means, exactly?

"Do we, as a people, have a right to the private affairs of government officials, and even celebrities? And furthermore, doesn't the media have a duty to keep the public informed of how their leaders - elected, appointed, and perceived - behave in their spare time?"

She smiled. "Today, I'd like you all to discuss the concept of privacy. When one runs for office, or chooses to become a celebrated figure of some other nature - artist, performer, et cetera - have they given up their right to a private life? And what about their families, and loved ones - those who didn't make that choice, but had it made for them? Should they suck it up and enjoy the limelight, or learn to find ways around the paprazzi?

"So. Talk. I'd like to hear your opinions on this, such as they are."

[ooc: ~~WAIT FOR THE OCD THREADS OMG!~~ OCD THREADS UP YAY]

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...

Logan signed in.

Alanna signs in.

Janet signed in.

Barbossa signed in.

Krycek signed in, looking wary.

Callisto signed in.

Veronica signs in

Chloe signs in.

Jessica signed in.

Kara signs in.

Have celebrities (of all natures) given up their right to privacy?

"Doesn't that depend on how you define privacy first?" asked Janet. "I mean, are there limits, or are you talking about giving up their right to having any aspects of their lives be kept away from the media?"

"Good point, Ms. Frasier," Rita smiled. "There are things that some would view as private that really, the public generally has no desire to know. Let's use a definition of...personal details, and things that would reflect one's morals. If a politician has an extramarital affair, do we have a right to know that?"

Janet smiled back. "I would say that yes, we do." She paused briefly. "Especially if his or her campaign platform is based upon a specific moral code that prohibits extramarital affairs. However, even if a politician doesn't campaign with that in mind, first of all, a politician should understand that running for public office opens up all aspects of his life for scrutiny. Public office involves serving the people who elected you--and the people who didn't--and I believe that they have a right to know what forces in a candidate's life will affect how that candidate does his job."

"But especially if it exposes hypocrisy," added Janet.

"I don't know about that. If it's hypocritical, then yes, but people in public life aren't really only one person. They have both a public and a private persona, and oftentimes it's as if what happened to the public person didn't happen to the private; that is, what affects a politician's private life often has no direct bearing on his public actions and his governing. I'm not convinced that to penalize a man for that is entirely fair. History is littered with great men who happened to be, say, shameless womanizers and I don't mean Thomas Jefferson, I swear."

Alanna thought about all the gossip about her, Jon, Jon's love life, their Majesties, her love life, and her and Jon's sexual orientations. "Yeah, they have, wheter voluntarily or not. As soon as they get into the public's eyes, the public wants to know everything about them and cannot be stopped."

"And do you think that's fair, Ms. Trebond?" Rita asked almost gently.

Alanna pondered this for another second. "As long as I'm not the one being gossiped about, yeah."

Barbossa tapped his quill against his lips, thinking. "There certainly be an impression that if ye be in the public eye at all, yer whole life should be available fer public inspection. By choosin' the life that be puttin' ye in the spotlight, ye be a bit o' a hypocrite t' also be demandin' that the spotlight only be showin' ye from yer best side, as it were." Barbossa shrugged. "I be of the impression that information be good--even if the information be not particularly flatterin'. It be formin' an impression--and if it be of a person in power who be needin' t' have his ego checked, so much the better."

Alanna glanced at Barbossa's quill, jealous.

"And what of, say, the families and friends and signicant others of these people, Mr. Barbossa? Is it fair to scrutinize them as well, even though they didn't choose their celebrity?" Rita asked.

Barbossa scratched his nose. "I be not exactly sure where fair be comin' into it, Professor. They be gettin' scrutized whether it be fair or not. I be wishin' 'em the best of luck tryin' t' avoid it."

"No, it's not fair," Logan interjected. "And it's pretty sad, really, to see people whose lives are so empty that they fill their hours spreading gossip about people they've never met."

"Thar be worse hobbies that I kin be thinkin' of," Barbossa said mildly.

Logan shook his head. "The public has no right to know about the private lives of celebrities, no matter why they're famous."

"But, Mr. Echolls, isn't it arguable that if celebrities didn't want their lives on display, they shouldn't have put them there?" Rita replied.

"Yeah, you could argue it," Logan said. "But you'd be wrong. Celebrities sign up to be artists or politicians or hack actors - not to be disected in the public eye. Why does anyone need to know what Tom Cruise's favorite color is, anyway? The 'public' needs to get lives of their own and leave celebrities alone."

"A fair point," Rita said, wondering who the bloody hell this 'Tom Cruise' might be, "but given what we've seen of the vast, vast majority of celebrities - doesn't it seem that a great deal of them enjoy this attention being showered on them? Until it turns sour, that is. And so in that case, do they have the right to retract from the spotlight in which they were so content before?"

"Suppose I brought you, say, a pie," Logan said. "And you like this pie. You tell me it's your favorite kind of pie. So the next day I bring you two pies. And the third day I bring you four pies, and so on. Now when the truck fills this classroom with pies and crushes you beneath them, can I shrug and say, 'Well, she liked pie, so she must've wanted to die that way?'"

"Well, I would have stopped you before then," Rita replied, shaking her head. "Probably after the second pie. I like pie, but I don't enjoy it that much. Bad for the figure."

She toyed with her wand. "Which brings us back to our point - if I enjoyed the pie when it was good, and encouraged you to continue to bring it to me, do I have any real right to be upset when things no longer go my way?"

"Yeah," Logan said. "You have a right to say when I've gone too far, and tell me to back off."

"And who, exactly, determines how far is too far?" Rita asked.

"The celebrity. When they say 'stop, get the hell off my lawn, you vultures' that's a pretty big clue that it's gone too far," Logan said.

"If you're 'signing up' to be a celebrity, then you should have an idea what you're getting into beforehand. If you want to have power, money, fame, then you're going to have to sacrifice - your privacy, or your freedom in some cases, for example." Krycek wondered if maybe Logan was a little invested in the subject, for all his rather heated responses.

"Why?" Logan asked. "Because they have something you don't have, so they must be punished somehow?"

Krycek arched an eyebrow. "If you have something, people will want it. It's not right necessarily, but if you come into it without that realization, then you're either not very smart or you're irresponsible."

"But we're talking about whether people have the right to invade the privacy of celebrities. Not whether they will," Logan said.

"If you've put yourself into the public eye, you have to expect it, at least to a degree. A right to privacy? They have a right to the things anyone else does under the law." Krycek would have a lot more to say if talking about sekrit government projects weren't kind of a give-away that he wasn't all he seemed.

"Just because it's what our society wants, doesn't make it right for the people in the spotlight. Fifty years ago, celebrities weren't hounded the way they are today. Everyone should have the right to keep a part of their life private, even if they choose to become a public figure," Veronica disagreed.

"And as for people who don't ask to be in the spotlight, but are affiliated in some way with a celebrity?" Veronica absolutely did not glance at Logan. "They absolutely deserve their privacy."

"I have to disagree, Ms. Mars," Rita said. "Simply because the technology to pursue celebrities didn't exist doesn't mean they weren't, as you say, 'hounded.'" She folded her hands behind her back. "People love a public figure. They naturally want to know more about them. Is that so wrong, for their fans to want to be informed?"

"For the fans to be curious? No. But to take steps which lead to an invasion of privacy of people who did nothing more than be connected with someone in a positiion of power? Yes."

Veronica gave Callisto a grateful look for being able to put her thoughts into words so well.

"That's exactly what I was trying to say, Ms. Skeeter. Yes, I think if you're in the public eye, then you should be prepared to share some aspects of your life, but I also think the public should respect whatever boundries you set and I definitely don't think they should hound people who just happen to be close to the public figure."

...

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Journalistic Integrity (Friday, January 13 - 3rd period)

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After Class

OOC