late post: Privacy vs Public Interest

I wrote this back in week 9 but forgot to post it, woops!

Today we had a seminar on the public’s right to know and the individual’s privacy, and if they are mutually exclusive.

There was discussion on where the line was drawn between the two, with a general conclusion that if it affects the public or the way in which the individual can do their job (like politicians), then the public should know.

This is still questionable with health issues, though, such as past presidents that had health issues that were kept quiet. Although it never affected their job, should the public still have been told?

One point Christina raised was that a journalist needs to be ready to bare everything in their own lives if they start exposing other people’s lives.

Should people that choose to be in the public eye still have the right to privacy?

One last interesting question was where we, as future journalists, draw the line on privacy and what we see as the future line between public interest and privacy.

Personally, I think the pressures of a journalism job would force many to reveal things they wouldn’t normally be inclined to do. Christina said that in her career she had moments where she drew the line and turned the camera off, and was lucky to keep her job through those moments.

I think on a personal level as journalists, we don’t have the final say on what will go to print and what doesn’t, but we can decide where our own individual line stands and how far we would go, and stand by those decisions, even in it means losing a job.

That’s the idealistic view, anyway.