Panelists Debate Privacy for Politicians

Over 150 people attended last night’s panel discussion “Private Lives and Public Officials” designed to critique media coverage of politicians’ private lives.

Marvin Kalb, author of the book “One Scandalous Story,” an expose of the media’s reaction to the first ten days of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, began the discussion by telling a story about how he bumped into “a woman with stunning legs” who was on her way up to see President John F. Kennedy ’40 at the Carlisle Hotel in New York City.

Kalb said he felt then, and still believes now, that this was not a news story and that the current constant stream of negative reporting about politicians’ personal lives has contributed to the public’s mistrust of the government and inspired the notion the politicians are by nature corrupt.

However, the majority of the panelists said that they felt on some level the “public has a right to know” about politicians private actions.

Fred Schauer, academic dean of the Kennedy School of Government, argued that certain actions taken in one’s personal life may act as statistical indicators of more general character traits.

“Bill Clinton cheats at golf” he said. “He plays a game which bears at best a casual resemblance to the game casual golfers play.”

This habit at golf, Schauer argued, indicates of Clinton’s personality as a whole.

Alex Jones, director of the Shorenstien Center at the Kennedy School and moderator for the evening asked all the panelists if they would publish the hypothetical story that President Bush had a mistress.

The majority of the panel said they would, but Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s “Hardball” dissented.

He argued that he would “never” publish such an article.

“It’s gotta be sex plus,” he said. Bush has to be sleeping with either a lobbyist or someone who works for the president, otherwise “it’s not news. Who cares?”

Emily Rooney, host of WGBH’s “Greater Boston,” claimed that “we’re all better off in the end knowing everything about one another so that we can make judgements.”

Most of the panelists agreed that it is up to the public to decide what is newsworthy, and that editors are not in a position to decide what the voters should take into consideration when deciding which candidate to vote for.

It was also unanimously acknowledged that in practice, journalistic rules are often unclear.

“It’s great to talk about rules and standards, but in the real world it’s murky,” said Evan Thomas, assistant managing editor of “Newsweek.”

Most questions from the audience concentrated on general issues such as the privacy of someone’s sexual preference and the role of journalists as public servants.

Some attendees expressed dismay at the topic.

“It would have made more sense a little while ago,” said Brian Braiker, a Cambridge resident. “[The subject matter] was a bit dated. A discussion about how the press was handling Sept. 11 would have been better. I don’t think anybody cares right now.”