Private lives and the public interest

Politicians know this, which is why they are in fact quite keen to have us know about their private lives, when it suits their purposes. Hence the Christmas-card photos with the family, the exclusive behind-the-scenes interviews, even the odd teary soliloquy about a personal tragedy. If politicians do not themselves separate their personal and public lives, it’s not clear why the rest of us should.

Is everything fair game, then, no matter how personal? Is it open season on politicians’ private lives, the better to feed a scandal-hungry media? No. We are not required to substitute one extreme for another, as indiscriminate in the latter case as the former. We are required to use some judgment. As it happens, we are not without yardsticks. There are, first, the basic standards of responsible journalism. Is it true? Is it fair? And before all: is it relevant? Is this something the public would find pertinent to taking the measure of this person?

And there are the sorts of rules that restrain the state in similar situations. We should, for example, have “reasonable and probable grounds” before we go asking a prying personal question. When Pamela Wallin famously asked John Turner whether he had a drinking problem, she was not just fishing: the matter was widely rumoured, if not publicly discussed. Likewise, the means by which information is obtained should not be overly invasive. The Toronto Star did not go poking through Giambrone’s garbage to discover the erstwhile mayoral candidate’s public image as a happily “partnered” man was a sham. His jilted lover came to them with the proof.

I know, I know: would anyone have voted for JFK if they’d been told what he was up to? Who knows? That’s up to the public to decide, not the media. Still, it didn’t seem to hurt Clinton. Which suggests standards are not so impossibly high as all that. Personally, the test I apply is this: knowing what I know, would I hire this person to deliver pizza? If they can’t pass that test, I’m not sure they should be prime minister or president.