The "legitimate and essential responsibility of newspapers"

This week has seen an interesting story from Liberia.

In what seems to me to have been an obvious set-up (perhaps by journalists, but more probably by political rivals), a government minister was photographed in flagrante delicto. The photograph was published in explicit quasi-pornographic detail by a newspaper, and the minister lost his job. The newspaper was closed down by the authorities. I do not approve of this and unsurprisingly the president of the World Association of Newspapers Gavin O'Reilly - yes, that's our own Gavin, son of Dr A.J.F. - condemns it.

However, the terms in which he does so are revealing:

While the publication of sexually explicit photos is controversial, the investigation of public officials is a legitimate and essential responsibility of newspapers.

In other words, he says that he believes that it is a legitimate and essential responsibility of newspapers to pry into the sexual behaviour of individuals who happen to hold public office.

Why ?

I do not exclude the possibility that the sexual behaviour of public figures might in some circumstances be a matter of legitimate public interest - though it should be noted that I would require a considerable amount of persuasion that it was justifiable to publish such material - but in the Liberian case, there was no suggestion of the minister's private life having any relevance beyond the usual guff along the lines of "how could anyone trust this man ?".

(No politician should ever be trusted is my view; the old wisdom was "put not your trust in princes").

Gavin O'Reilly is a public figure more powerful than most, if not all, politicians. I'll bet that he does not accept that his private life, much less his behaviour in the bedroom - any bedroom - could ever be of legitimate public interest.

After all, the great Vincent Browne has often claimed on his radio programme that O'Reilly does not even allow he media he controls to fully cover the news from the Planning Tribunal. It may be purely coincidental - if I am to be contortionately fair - that Dr A.J.F. (the da) is implicated in the matters upon which he apparently does not see it as their "essential responsibility" to properly and fully report.