Privacy and Media Ethics: Homework Assignment: Answers Due in class: February 23, 2012



MEDIA ETHICS CASE STUDY "Arthur Ashe and the Right to Privacy"
By: CAROL OUKROP Kansas State University

Authors' note: Arthur Ashe died from AIDS-related complications in February 1993.

 "Tennis great Arthur Ashe has AIDS...." began the dispatch fed by USA Today to its overseas edition and the Gannett News Service April 8, 1992.
 Ashe, a disciplined athlete who overcame racial barriers, was 48. He was the first African-American to win the U.S. Open and Wimbledon tennis championships. He was reluctant to go public with his disease, but was given little choice.

 On April 7 he was contacted by a USA Today reporter Doug Smith about a rumor telephoned in to the newspaper that Ashe had AIDS. After speaking with Smith, Ashe talked with USA Today's executive editor/sports, Gene Policinski. Policinski asked Ashe if he was HIV-positive, and the response was "could be." Ashe asked Policinski to delay the story for 36 hours. Policinski would not promise Ashe the delay. Ashe called a press conference for April 8.

The call from USA Today, Ashe said at the press conference, put him in the unenviable position of having to lie if he wanted to protect his family's privacy.
 "I am sorry that I have been forced to make this revelation at this time. After all, I am not running for some office of public trust, nor do I have stockholders to account to. It is only that I fall in the dubious umbrella of' quote, public figure, end of quote."

 Later Ashe wrote in the Washington Post that going public with a disease such as AIDS was "akin to telling the world in 1900 that you had leprosy."
 Ashe was married and was the father of a 5-year-old daughter, Camera, thought to have been protected from knowledge of his disease prior to the call from USA Today Ashe had known since 1988 that he had AIDS, apparently contracted from a blood transfusion required during heart surgery in 1983. Blood was not routinely checked for the virus before 1985.

 It is clear in articles appearing since Ashe's press conference that a number of journalists knew about Ashe's disease, but chose to protect "Arthur Ashe's Secret" (Frank Deford, Newsweek, April 20, 1992).

 "Keeping my AIDS status private," Ashe wrote in the Washington Post, "enabled me to control my life."

 Was USA Today right or wrong? An editorial in The Christian Century (April 22, 1992) called this a "tale of media irresponsibility and corporate greed," an example of "entertainment posing as information."

 Is Peter Prichard, editor of USA Today, correct in saying "When the press has kept secrets . . . that conspiracy of silence has not served the public. . . ."? "Journalists serve the public by reporting news, not hiding it. By sharing his story, Arthur Ashe and his family are free of a great weight. In the days ahead, they will help us better understand AIDS and how to defeat it."

 Public figure/privacy decisions are often difficult, this one perhaps particularly so. Ashe had, over the years, earned much respect. In addition to his accomplishments in tennis, he participated in human rights struggles in the United States and was a leading critic of apartheid in South Africa. He was the author of a lauded history of African-American athletes in the United States.

 Fred Bruning writes, however, that "Cruel as it may seem, the wishes of a stricken man cannot substitute for editorial judgment. The process is imperfect, and its justice notoriously rough, but the objective is clear. Personal concerns are secondary to the principles of a free press."

Issues/Questions to Answer:

1. Should Policinski have promised Ashe the requested 36 hours during which to prepare
    a statement?

2. Were Deford, Roy Johnson and others who knew about Ashe's disease months before
    the press conference right to keep Ashe's secret?

3. Does the Ashe case really differ significantly from, say, the rape of a celebrity? Both
    are public figures, but according to the policy of many news media only the rape
    victim would be afforded anonymity.

4. What is the public's stake in knowing Ashe had AIDS?