I've been thinking a lot lately about the public's right to know in the Internet age -- people have always had a right to public records including things like home ownership (including mortgage details), campaign contributions, public gun-carrying permits, etc., but with the Web it's much easier for anyone to publish that information and quickly disseminate it to a large number of people. This has freaked a lot of people out, but my general response is...too bad! Public records are critical to a free and open society, and better technology does not change that. If someone uses public information to harass somebody -- say, for supporting a political candidate or a cause -- than that person doing the harassment is breaking the law, and should be arrested..
This issue has come up a lot lately, most recently to some degree with the case of people protesting outside the homes of wealthy AIG executives. Again, my feeling is that it depends on the conduct. I have no problem with people staying on a public street outside someone's home and conducting a peaceful protest. People have the right in America to travel freely on public roads, take photos from them, even of other people's homes (I seriously don't understand the fuss over Google Street View) and they have the right to make comments or ask questions of people in public places. It would be hypocritical of me to believe otherwise, since my job as journalist has often involved these tasks -- ringing someone's doorbell, for example, when they won't respond to phone calls for an important article involving them or their business.
Which brings us to the case of Bill O'Reilly. The Fox News host has this strange love-hate relationship with stalking. He goes to great lengths to get confrontational video of people -- frequently of other journalists -- who've disagreed with him or offended his sensibilities in some way. His most recent target is a blogger named Amanda Terkel who works for the Center for American Progress in Washington. Without ever contacting Terkel to see if she'd be willing to do a normal interview, O'Reilly sent a crew out to confront her on a public street -- which I assume makes for livelier TV footage. To repeat, I would have no problem with O'Reilly's crew a) waiting outside her office in D.C. as she left work or b) even ringing her doorbell at home to ask if she would agree to an interview, unnecessary as that would have been. Instead, this is what O'Reilly's crew did:
– The Stalking: Watters and his camera man accosted me at approximately 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 21, in Winchester, VA, which is a two-hour drive from Washington, DC. My friend and I were in this small town for a short weekend vacation and had told no one about where we were going. I can only infer that the two men staked out my apartment and then followed me for two hours. Looking back, my friend and I remember seeing their tan SUV following us for much of the trip.
That's not journalism -- that's just creepy. I'm not an authority on stalking laws, but it may not even be legal. And by conflating his bizarre TV shock practices with real journalism, he does a lot of collateral damage to the public's right to know. Sometimes I wonder if Keith Olbermann goes to this well a tad too often, but tonight I don't think there's any question that stalker Bill O'Reilly is the...worst...person...in...the..world!
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
E-mail Will by clicking here.
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