ok, so let me see if i understand your point… some things are ok to publish if overheard at public events?

i do not think there should be any reason that politicians should be entitled to extra privacy rights: this man was standing on a stage in front of a mike with an audience. why on earth should there be any expectation of privacy when he’s inviting people to hear him speak and he’s already taken the stage?

i do think it was “decent” for the press to pretend fdr wasn’t in a wheel chair. i do not however think that their choices in the 40s should imply any sort of expectation for john mccain’s medical records. there is a limit on the expectation of privacy when you’ve put yourself in the public eye and “decency” is a concept which is as legally slippery as “pornography”. there are two problems with the comparisons you make:

“One response is the Soviet response — learn to shut up in all contexts in which you might be surveilled. See my favorite testimony ever: http://www.lessig.org/content/articles/works/statement.pdf“

do soviet reporters have first amendment rights?

“Another response is to start to regulate — whether through norms or law but at least norms — what people do with the information they capture. Such regulation would say, in this context: yes, your (likely) remotely controlled microphone was on, and it plainly captured something that Rendell didn’t intend to be broadcast, so do the decent thing and don’t broadcast it.”

does this conflict with first amendment rights? i think it’s troubling that you do not discuss that at all while you’re leaping to the defense of a politician under the microscope of our evil, evil press.

how would such regulation begin to work, and why don’t you see the obvious (to me) philosophical conflict you’re setting up in comparison to the way you talk about copyrighted work? if a politician can insist that his words not be published because of his privacy rights, isn’t that just as restrictive for our discourse?

i am also troubled by the way you compare my privacy rights to his. i would love the chance to get up in front of the media on stage with prepared remarks. this is in no way similar to me to tapping my phone line or eavesdropping on my conversations at home. why are you equating the two? reality should matter, shouldn’t it?

That makes no sense. Rendell is an extremely sophisticated player in the world of the media, so he would have an even lower expectation than probably anyone else there.

It wasn’t surveillance. He was a few feet from a microphone — set up for the event —  and close enough to have it pick up his voice. It’s not as if CNN was outside his home with a parabolic dish snaring the governor’s chats with his wife.

The argument that Rendell would not have wanted his comment broadcast, so it was unethical for CNN to do so, would render reporters nothing more than stenographers.

It reminds me of the comment by the late mayor of Chicago, Richard J. Daley, who once admonished reporters to print what he meant, rather than what he said.

There wouldn’t be an argument at all if Rendell had made a racist statement off mic. Instead, he made a statement that some people find greatly objectionable, some mildly offensive and others wouldn’t think twice about it.

The point isn’t what you think of the statement or what Campbell Brown thinks of it.

It’s whether you believe people are entitled to the information concerning Rendell’s statement, so they can make their own judgment about it and what it says about Rendell and his attitude toward women, if it says anything.

There’s a difference between whether you report the statement at all and whether, as Campbell Brown did, you devote a lengthy commentary to it. (At least lengthy for cable news.)

That’s a matter of news judgment — or lack of news judgment — and I think that’s what more people are actually reacting to.

perhaps. but the editorial point was that he probably wouldn’t have made the point if it was a single man. he didn’t make the opposite point when it was married with children men doing the job. if their family obligations and “life” didn’t prevent them from doing a good job, why make a point of the supposed freedom a single person would have to give 19-20 hours a day to the job?

i think also that number (19-20) contextualizes the statement. it’s exaggeration makes his comments appear as lazy sexism rather than serious analysis.

As to the point of this post, you’re reposting the story in it’s entirety, so there’s a bit of a double-standard to your complaints. I hadn’t seen or heard of it anywhere but here, and this dumb story would have disappeared eventually of it’s own ethereal nature.

While I agree that the proper response to more and more surveillance is more and more regulation of surveillance, I do not have any problem with news organizations broadcasting any comments made by public servants. I think the people of Pennsylvania have every right to know as much as possible about the men and women they are electing to rule on their behalf: the dangers of overblown gotcha! journalism are far less than the dangers of a executive operating under a government-mandated veil of secrecy.

I can’t speak to what Rendell was really implying. It may very well have been a sexist jab, and as Larry points out it was certainly unwise. However, I agree that this is typical of CNN’s path from reputable news organization to sensationalist rag. As exhibit B I submit the following from earlier today:

The top new story on CNN’s Political Ticker was listed on the CNN homepage as ‘Ticker: Obama ‘disappointed’ in Gov. Richardson.’ Snared and clicking through to the blog, I find the real headline ‘Obama ‘deeply disappointed’ Richardson shaved beard.’