Global media discusses private lives of public figures

LAHORE: While most of the international public figures certainly benefit from the media outreach to send messages across to their voters, supporters and other segments of the society in line with their respective agendas, newspapers, radio stations and television channels believe that given the power these people derive, it is in the public interest to publish or air the information pertaining to their private lives.
On the other hand, public figures are heard arguing that the intrusion into their public work is immoral since they possess a greater right to privacy.
Research conducted by the “Jang Group and Geo Television Network” shows that his fiery debate is still on everywhere in the world though!
It goes without saying that there are dozens of arguments for and against publishing or broadcasting the information related to the private lives of the powerful rulers, affluent humans, rich tycoons, well-known politicians and other celebrities living on the planet. Same is true for court decisions that have gone both ways in different circumstances over the years.
But generally, media world-over has generally been extremely ruthless and relentless whenever public figures have committed any sin, act of immorality or wrongdoing.
Media says it is a watchdog and is doing its duty with malice towards none.
Although one should be extremely sympathetic towards Imran Khan for his recent divorce, second tragedy of its kind faced by him in 11 years, he should accept the blame for actually allowing the media to televise his personal life, for publicly announcing his marriage plans and for inviting cameramen to hold lengthy photo-sessions on his weddings.
Basically, like former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Imran has often bought media-related troubles himself and shouldn’t be blaming anyone.
It is the same media that had helped him climb the stairs of stardom faster than hundreds of equally-talented and skillful contemporary cricketers in 10 cricketing nations and it is the same media that has helped him and his political party PTI gain by leaps and bounds since his October 2011 Lahore rally and public meeting.
When the then French president Sarkozy was to arrive in India in 2008, eminent writer and country’s Minister of State in the Government of India for External Affairs and Human Resource Development, Shashi Tharoor, had written in the January 27, 2008 edition of the Times of India: “Very simply, the President (Sarkozy) himself has opened his private life to public scrutiny. He has not merely conducted a romance with a media figure; he has flaunted it, taking his lady love (a model and singer) on overseas visits and being photographed with her, visiting tourist sites, holding hands, embracing. The media, invited to indulge its prurience, has lapped it all up.”
Shashi Tharoor had added: “Sarkozy has humanised his office by televising his presidential and personal life; instead of adapting himself to the presidency, he has adapted the presidency to himself, individualising his political power in an increasingly individualist society. To get on the front page with Carla Bruni is as relevant as making headlines with a State visit; the presidency is no longer a symbol, it is a flesh-and-blood man. Sarkozy gives the media just enough to make them more interested than they ever were in any of his predecessors, but not so much as to devalue his office (hence the secrecy about his marriage itself). It is almost as if Princess Diana was holding Tony Blair’s job.”
Shashi had gone on to write: “After all, that was how it used to be in the West; the sexual peccadilloes of assorted American presidents were simply not discussed until the Lewinsky scandal blew the veil off the Clinton White House. In France, too, presidents were understood to be discreetly pursuing their extra-marital interests, but the press never discussed such stories; it was only upon the death of president Francois Mitterrand, for instance, that it was revealed he had maintained a long-time mistress and had had a daughter by her, whose appearance at his funeral was the first public acknowledgement of her existence. President Sarkozy’s own relationship with a well-known journalist - who even lived with him when his wife briefly left him - was never reported. So, what has happened to change all that?”
In India, the Press Council of India (PCI) has laid down Norms of Journalistic Conduct, which address the issue of privacy.
The PCI Norms of Journalistic Conduct recognise privacy as an inviolable human right, but adds a caveat; that the degree of privacy depends on circumstances and the person concerned.
On the other hand, the Right to information and the right to communicate the information via media is guaranteed under Article 19(1) (a) of the Constitution of India.
In State of Uttar Pradesh v Raj Narain, the Supreme Court of India had held that Article 19(1) (a), in addition, to guaranteeing freedom of speech and expression, guarantees the right to receive information on matters concerning public interest.
At present, the media across the border is governed by disparate norms outlined by self-governing media bodies, like the Press Council of India, the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and the Code of Ethics drafted by the News Broadcasting Standard Authority (NBSA), and hence not very open or liberal, but still manages to play with words while reporting private matters of public figures quite independently.
But despite restraints, Indian media has highlighted sex scams of country’s numerous prominent politicians, which is far more difficult than reporting or doing follow-ups on corruption scandals.
For example, in 2009, the Governor of Andhra Pradesh, Narayan Dutt Tiwari had to quit for his immorality.
In 2009 again, a Smajawadi party leader Azam Khan was alleged by top actress Jaya Prada of distributing her fake nude pictures. Jaya was contesting polls at that time and had emerged victorious.
In 2008, Manmohan Samal, Minister for Revenue in Orissa, had to relinquish charge after he was found guilty in a similar scandal.
In 2005, Sanjay Joshi of the Bharatia Janata Party was caught ‘red handed’ while he was in the middle of a merry-making act.
In 2003, Amarmani Tripathi, then cabinet minister of Uttar Pradesh, was jailed for murdering his girl friend, Madhumita Shukla.
In 2003, Harak Singh Rawat, a former revenue minister of Uttarakhand state, was found guilty.
In 1997, PK Kunjalikutty, a Kerala politician and in 1998, JB Patnaik, the Chief Minister of Orissa, were reported for their alleged involvement in similar cases.
In 1978, Suresh Ram, the son of the then Indian Defence Minister Jagjivan Ram, was also found involved in an act of adultery.
In United States, unless restricted by a valid prior restraint (which is rare), the news media are free to publish any information or opinion they desire under the First Amendment of the country’s Constitution. Hence, the federal government does not and cannot regulate the content of any newspaper or television channel.
This freedom, however, does not immunise the US media outlets from liability for what they publish.
A newspaper that publishes false information about a person, for example, can be sued for libel. A television station similarly can be sued if it broadcasts a story that unlawfully invades a person’s privacy.
The legal standard of defamation and libel suits changes depending upon whether the defamation plaintiff is a private or public figure. Private figures must show that a defendant was negligent, or at fault, in order to prevail.
But, the so-called public figures or public officials who sue for defamation must meet a higher legal standard. They must show that a defendant acted with actual malice by clear and convincing evidence in order to recover. The courts have defined actual malice as knowing that a statement was false or acting in reckless disregard as to whether a statement was true or false.
However, many different types of conduct can cause someone to file an intrusion/invasion-of-privacy lawsuit. Common examples include trespassing on private property without the owner’s consent, installing hidden cameras or other secret surveillance equipment to monitor someone’s behaviour, and harassing a person by continually following him.
An example of conduct that was held to be intrusive enough to warrant judicial relief was the case of photographer Ron Galella, who desperately wanted to photograph Jackie Onassis (the wife of the 35th President of the United States John F. Kennedy who had remarried) and her children. After a court injunction and appeal, Galella was prohibited from approaching within 25 feet of Jackie Onassis.
He was barred from blocking her movement in any public place and engaging in any conduct that would reasonably be foreseen to harass, alarm or frighten the defendant.
We all know how American media had literally “grilled” the then sitting President Bill Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
It was the investigation and media reporting in this case that had eventually led to the impeachment of Clinton on December 19, 1998 by the US House of Representatives and his subsequent acquittal on all impeachment charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in a 21-day Senate trial that had started on January 7, 1999.
On his divorce issue, the US media has been dubbed “brutal” by the affected parties.
For example, it was the mainstream American media that had made divorce cost dearly to a former American Vice President Nelson Rockefeller (1908-1979).
Divorce had deprived Rockefeller his Republican Presidential nomination in 1964. This was an era when marital infidelity and divorce were toxic for presidential candidatures.
Rockefeller was in the second of his four terms as governor and a leading contender for the Presidency at the time, but his decision to divorce his first wife Mary Clark in 1962, after 31 years of marriage and after having had five children from her, had raised a storm in the United States—courtesy the media.
To the sheer dismay of most of his supporters and loyalists, Nelson Rockefeller had remarried in 1963. Happy Rockefeller, the second wife of Nelson Rockefeller, had also made news by divorcing her husband to marry Nelson Rockefeller though.
(Reference: The May 22, 2015 edition of the Los Angeles Times)
US, British, Russian, Indian and European media have covered and commented upon the divorces of many world leader, rulers, sportspersons and other celebrities like Russian President Vladimir Putin (divorced wife Lyudmila after 30 years of wedlock in 2013 after rumours had surfaced that Putin was dating Alina Kabaeva, an Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast. In 2008, Putin had denied reports that he had secretly divorced and was planning to marry Alina Kabayeva), former French President Nicolas Sarkozy (he became his country’s first head of state to get divorced in office when he separated from wife Cecilia in 2007. It then took only a year for Sarkozy to marry Carla Bruni, a singer-songwriter and former model, former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi (he got divorced from his wife Veronica Lario, in 2009. Berlusconi had dubbed Italian court judges “Communist and feminists” after he was ordered to pay Lario 26 million euros a year, Guatemala’s President Alvaro Colom (he had divorced wife, Sandra Torres, in March 2011), legendary South African President Nelson Mandela (he parted ways with wife Winnie after 38 years of marriage in 1996 or just six years after he was released from prison. Mandela claimed in court Winnie was having an affair. The two had only been married for five years when Mandela was sentenced to prison in 1963 on treason charges), Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (he had split with second wife, Marisabel Rodriguez, in 2004. Chavez’s wife claimed he had bad temper), Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou (he had divorced his spouse Margaret after 38 years of wedlock in 1989 to marry his mistress, Dimitra Liani, an air stewardess), Peru’s head of state Alberto Fujimori (divorced his wife, Susana Higuchi, in 1995, after she had accused her husband’s family of corruption and he had in turn alleged her to be disloyal and a “blackmailing partner”), prime minister of Sweden Hans Goran Persson (he had filed for divorce from his wife, Annika, in December 2002 and the divorce proceedings were completed in April 2003), another Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt (he separated from his wife Filippa after 20 years together in March 2012), Peru’s head of state Alan Garcia (he had officially confirmed that he had separated from his wife Pilar Nores in May 2011), Prince Karim Aga Khan, other members of the Aga Khan family, Cricketers Mohsin Khan, Zaheer Abbas, Sarfraz Nawaz, Garfield Sobers, Ian Chappell, Andrew Flintoff, Graeme Smith, Ian Botham, Shoaib Malik, former Indian fast bowler Javagal Srinath, Indian wicketkeeper batsman Dinesh Kartik, England spinner Monty Panesar, Ravi Shastri, Shane Warne, Muhammad Azharuddin, Sanath Jayasuriya, Clive Lloyd, Herschelle Gibbs, Jonty Rhodes, Bret Lee, Darren Gough, Graham Thorpe, Dominick Cork, Phillip DeFreitas, Mark Ram Prakash, Chris Cowdrey and Kenya’s Maurice Odumbe, and other Golf, Cycling, Basket Ball, Football and Tennis players like Aisamul Haq, Chris Evert Lloyd, John Lloyd, Golf legend Tiger Woods, John McEnroe, Belgian tennis player Justin Henin, Bjorn Borg, Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, Mike Tyson, Cycling Champion Lance Armstrong, Michael Jordan and Golfer Greg Norman etc.
When celebrated Hollywood star Lindsay Lohan was arrested in 2007 and charged for cocaine possession, US media had literally haunted her.
Another Hollywood celebrity, Paris Hilton, was arrested in 2006 for driving under the influence of alcohol. Her license was suspended and she got a probation period for 36 months plus a fine. In 2007, she was arrested for driving without a licence and that made her serve 45 days in jail. For Paris Hilton, the US media was nothing less than a nightmare in those days.
The late Pop King, Michael Jackson, was involved in several cases from trademark infringement to not delivering albums on time.
He was literally slammed by his country’s media for his lurid sexual acts with a 13-year-boy.
Mike Tyson, the youngest-ever heavyweight boxing champion, was sentenced to six years in prison for raping a woman in 1992. Media kept chasing him like a shadow. He served three years, before being released in 1995.
In 2007, Tyson was again sentenced to 24 hours in jail, 360-hour community service and three years probation for possession of narcotics.
Jennifer Capriati, the former world number One female tennis player, was taken into custody in 1994 for possessing marijuana. Media did not spare her too.
It was the world media that had exposed an uncountable number of high-ranking personalities including presidents, premiers, politicians, ministers, sportsmen and showbiz celebrities have often been found guilty of having ‘spicy relationships.’
As a result, many of these highly placed people were convicted, arrested, fined and ousted for their lucrative positions.
These include: A former IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, France’s Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand, American president John F. Kennedy, Israel’s former president Moshe Katsav, Italian ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi, former Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, Former Zimbabwean president Canaan Banana, former US vice president Al Gore, former Malaysian deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, a US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, US president Obama’s half brother Samson Obama, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, actor-turned-Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, Indonesian politician Yahya Zaini, China’s Finance Minister Jin Renqing, European Commission Vice President Gunter Verheugen and innumerable US Senators like Bob Packwood, Barney Frank, James McGreevey, Jesse Jackson, Gary Condit, Eliot Spitzer, Jay Reynolds, Gerry Eastman Studds, Frederick Richmond, Neil Goldschmidt, Joseph Waggonner and Jerry Springer etc.
In United Kingdom, political sex shenanigans, tales of immorality and corruption as tabloid fodder date back to at least 1963, when Britain’s Secretary of State for War John Profumo attempted to cover up his affair with a showgirl, who had also been cavorting with a Soviet intelligence officer.
The incident had caused outrage in the UK and put a serious dent in the government of prime minister Harold MacMillan.”
When Lord Ashcroft’s biography of Prime Minister David Cameron was serialised by the “Daily Mail,” it had infuriated the head of British government — who was made to answer many embarrassing questions. The biography “Call me Dave” had accused Cameron of smoking weed and circulating cocaine at a dinner party at his house.
A key British newspaper “The Independent” had stated on September 23, 2015: “Cameron has made clear he doesn’t intend to ‘dignify’ the allegations in the book by responding to them.”
The British media has also been extremely merciless when it comes to reporting and exploring the private lives of Queen Elizabeth, Lady Diana and Prince Charles, Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew, legislators, globally-acknowledged football stars, foreign rulers and their siblings etc.
In April 2009, when US President Obama’s half brother, Samson Obama, was stopped from entering UK after lying to police over sex allegations, the British media was extremely severe.
The “Daily Mail,” in its April 12, 2009 edition, had stated: “The half-brother of President Barack Obama was refused an entry visa to Britain after lying to police officers about an accusation of sexual assault. The deception occurred in November when Samson Obama, who lives in Kenya, was in Britain staying with his mother, who lives in Berkshire.
He was questioned by police about the alleged assault, which he denied but during the investigation he used a false name and he later received a police caution. When he applied for another visa, hoping to visit Britain last week, he was refused.”
The news was embarrassing to the US president, who had given his younger half-brother a personal tour of the White House in January 2009, when he had attended the historic inauguration.