Nonsense. I read your blog post; you begin by asking readers to imagine an alternative reality where someone engaged in briebery is expose d by a journalist (despite the briber wishing that such activity would remain private), and then draw a false equivalence between bribery and exposure of one's body in a photograph. The differentce is that while bribery is a crime in most jurisdictions, taking a revealing photograph (or being the subject of one taken by someone else) is not a crime in any of the jurisdictions that apply here. So your public interest argument goes up in smoke.
You go on to draw a comparison with Anthony Wiener. But given that a) he is occupying public office while b) sending unsolicited pictures of a sexual nature to random women he encountered on the internet, that isn't equivalent either. There is a public-interest argument to be made about the unwisdom of him sending out sexy pictures of himself (albeit a limited one; I think most people were more offended by his persistent cheating on his wife than being a horny guy, and this might not have been such an issue if he was single), but you seem to have forgotten that the story first made headlines because he mistakenly posted pictures to his public Twitter account and then organized a wild-goose-chase investigation by falsely claiming his Twitter account had been hacked. This is very different some third party making public a picture of him that he had anticipated would be kept private.
Now I like a good contrarian argument as much as the next guy but this isn't a well-formed argument; it's irrational on its face and degrades the subject of the story in the process of trying and failing to make a point.
There are all sorts of legal acts which reporters write about and which others might like to keep hidden. For example, consider "secretive rich guy is a racist" or "person I disagree with took money from Koch". As a tech related example, consider assorted hit jobs on peter thiel, pax Dickinson, etc.
An act doesn't need to be criminal to be of journalistic interest. And a public figure is just a person that reporters take an interest in.
Perhaps, then, you should develop a new argument from that standpoint.
And a public figure is just a person that reporters take an interest in.
There is a difference between a merely famous person (eg Kim Kardashian) and a public figure like an elected official, in whose good behavior the public has an interest (as distinct from being interested in it in the colloquial sense). I mean this in the sense of the word republic which is a contraction of the Latin res publica or 'public matter.' This is why private individuals enjoy a right of publicity to their own likeness and copyright protection for their public performances, but the identity and doings of legislators and government officials (within the scope of their official activities) are in the public domain.
Nonsense. I read your blog post; you begin by asking readers to imagine an alternative reality where someone engaged in briebery is expose d by a journalist (despite the briber wishing that such activity would remain private), and then draw a false equivalence between bribery and exposure of one's body in a photograph. The differentce is that while bribery is a crime in most jurisdictions, taking a revealing photograph (or being the subject of one taken by someone else) is not a crime in any of the jurisdictions that apply here. So your public interest argument goes up in smoke.
You go on to draw a comparison with Anthony Wiener. But given that a) he is occupying public office while b) sending unsolicited pictures of a sexual nature to random women he encountered on the internet, that isn't equivalent either. There is a public-interest argument to be made about the unwisdom of him sending out sexy pictures of himself (albeit a limited one; I think most people were more offended by his persistent cheating on his wife than being a horny guy, and this might not have been such an issue if he was single), but you seem to have forgotten that the story first made headlines because he mistakenly posted pictures to his public Twitter account and then organized a wild-goose-chase investigation by falsely claiming his Twitter account had been hacked. This is very different some third party making public a picture of him that he had anticipated would be kept private.
Now I like a good contrarian argument as much as the next guy but this isn't a well-formed argument; it's irrational on its face and degrades the subject of the story in the process of trying and failing to make a point.