Kathleen Bartzen Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told The Daily Beast that the private life of a public official is relevant to a news audience when it affects them in a meaningful way. She listed one example: If a public official is embezzling public funds to pay for hotel rooms for their extramarital affair. “But when it is purely the private life of a public official, I struggle to see the public interest that’s served by reporting on that private life,” Culver said.
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