Week 7

Privacy Vs Public Interest

Week 7’s presentation is on Public Interest. To start off with this topic, the definition of public interest given was that the public has the rights to know what they want to know. But is this statement justifiable in all scenarios? The two examples given in the lecture are excellent case studies. 

The first example was on the American insurance companies Assurant and WellPoint. They were exposed as having policies targeting any clients diagnosed with breast cancer or HIV. This clearly protects clients who are suffering from illness and potential clients deserve to be warned from signing up with these insurance companies. The second example was on how celebrities get unwanted attention and news reports from crimes to nonsensical reports such as ‘wardrobe malfunction’. While celebrities should know better than to behave themselves in public, such reports do not add value to the readers’ lives but simply for entertainment purposes.

In my opinion,  public interest is an overrated phrase which should not be loosely associated with journalism. In the pursuit of ‘public interest’, many journalists have blurred the line between what’s news and what’s entertainment. For example, in the recent sex scandal involving IMF Strauss-kahn, many international newspapers have latched on and turn this news for entertainment purposes just to increase readership. Yes, it’s important to for the public to know as a matter-of-fact that this man might not be the most credible leader to head such a powerful position. But to carry this news and probe further, such as ‘how pathetic he is in jail’, ‘is he a sex addict’ etc is simply unnecessary.

-Andy Wang