All the news that's fit to print?

[GA Russell]

I have a pet peeve with the press reporting items which I do not believe meet the New York Times' minimal standard of news which is fit to print.

Two weeks ago, the news was that the husband of a woman soccer player was arrested for DUI. I remember a couple of years ago that our local paper reported that a baseball player's brother-in-law (!) was arrested for DUI.

Today the news on CNN is that the late Whitney Houston's daughter needed to be taken to the hospital.

I believe that these are instances of violation of a person's privacy. Personally, I have a problem with the press reporting on the problems of a "public person" when the problems are irrelevant to the reason the person is "public."

But in these cases, the person is not at all public, but merely a relative of a public person. I think that the press is way out of line here.

Any thoughts?

Edited February 1, 2015 by GA Russell

[JSngry]

Bobbi Kristina Brown is a celebrity, actually, but still, I feel your pain on the whole Culture Of Personality" driving headlines.

All I can say is that news agengies are businesses, so if the collective "we" didn't make it worth their while to report this stuff as prominently as they do, or to even report it at all.

Cue Pogo and/or Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, USMC

[sonnymax]

Today the news on CNN is that the late Whitney Houston's daughter needed to be taken to the hospital.

You fail to mention the fact she was found unresponsive in a bathtub, just like her mother, a few weeks shy of the anniversary of her mother's death, and not longer after the Lifetime biopic "Whitney" began airing. In our modern 24-hour news cycle, this certainly rates as "newsworthy", albeit very sad news.