Comments on: When Children of Politicians and Judges Blog http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/08/when_children_o.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:18:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Mike S. http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/08/when_children_o.html/comment-page-1#comment-57239 Mike S. Mon, 28 Aug 2006 21:09:03 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2006/08/when-children-of-politicians-and-judges-blog.html#comment-57239 I can understand your concern about the public status of the private citizens related to public officials, but to some extent — regardless of the newsworthiness of such online postings — the facebook.com and MySpace profiles are in the public domain. Just as anyone could write about how much private information can be gleened about a prominent CEO via the very public search tool Google, so too can anyone look at a public profile online or a Web log. While there are certainly questions to be asked about what is newsworthy, the fact remains that information posted in public electronic forums is, well, public. I can understand your concern about the public status of the private citizens related to public officials, but to some extent — regardless of the newsworthiness of such online postings — the facebook.com and MySpace profiles are in the public domain. Just as anyone could write about how much private information can be gleened about a prominent CEO via the very public search tool Google, so too can anyone look at a public profile online or a Web log.

While there are certainly questions to be asked about what is newsworthy, the fact remains that information posted in public electronic forums is, well, public.

]]> By: Frank http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/08/when_children_o.html/comment-page-1#comment-57238 Frank Mon, 28 Aug 2006 18:40:40 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2006/08/when-children-of-politicians-and-judges-blog.html#comment-57238 What's sad about this is that the titillating details of familial disclosures substitute for the real judgment the media ought to be doing about the significance of the policy choices these people are making. Why do a long story on the technical details of network neutrality when you can quote the CEO's son's blog? Why examine the details of the estate tax when you can mock an heir's white supremacy? I remember being shocked when I read Herbert Gans's <a href="http://nupress.northwestern.edu/title.cfm?ISBN=0-8101-2237-5" rel="nofollow">Deciding What's News</a> about 10 years ago....and my friend Jon Mermin's incisive advancement of these ideas in <a href="http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/6752.html" rel="nofollow"> Debating War and Piece</a>. But current "rules of newsworthiness" seem only to accelerate the rise of the trivial, fortuitous, and ephemeral. One last point--it's also a version of accomodating ourselves to an aristocracy...where political and business leaders are seen less as agents of the people than Olympian figures ripe for alternating hagiography and mockery. What’s sad about this is that the titillating details of familial disclosures substitute for the real judgment the media ought to be doing about the significance of the policy choices these people are making.

Why do a long story on the technical details of network neutrality when you can quote the CEO’s son’s blog? Why examine the details of the estate tax when you can mock an heir’s white supremacy?

I remember being shocked when I read Herbert Gans’s Deciding What’s News about 10 years ago….and my friend Jon Mermin’s incisive advancement of these ideas in

Debating War and Piece. But current “rules of newsworthiness” seem only to accelerate the rise of the trivial, fortuitous, and ephemeral.

One last point–it’s also a version of accomodating ourselves to an aristocracy…where political and business leaders are seen less as agents of the people than Olympian figures ripe for alternating hagiography and mockery.

]]>