Fair enough
OK. Let me try and organize my thoughts. This will meander and veer into profros type bollocks I fear.
I want to speak first of privacy. In truth, it is becoming an archaic ideal, a myth and a relic of a previous era. For better or worse I think this is simple fact.
Take, for example, you and I Matt. 10 years ago I wouldn't be a blip on your radar, you would have been ignorant to my very existence. Here we are today and with half a day you could (legally) find out almost everything about me simply from my posts on a Leicester city forum.
You could glean my name, my location, my age, my job. From there you could gather previous addresses, family tree, work history, educational background. You'd be able to tell what I looked like, you'd probably be able to hear my voice, my citizenship status, my wireless provider, phone numbers, where and when I was born, email addresses, any medical history and a surfeit of other information. And those are just the basic facts.
There have been advances in psychology that mean, based on the above information, as well as my 3000+ posts on here and anything I have shared publicly on Facebook, Twitter, and whatever else, you could begin to understand WHO I am as a person. My politics, my ethical values. Word choice and patterns can expose some things people hold true.
If I gave you 3 days, you could come to understand me better than I understand myself. Here is where the rubber meets the road. I have to be accountable for everything you find. This very post could be printed out and put on my desk and I would be accountable for it. Drunken tweets, my 10,000 emails to my fiancee on my work account, anything and everything is fair game. I have to be able to say "yep, that's me...I'm weird and a little ****ed-up".
In a way I think that's a beautiful thing. The modern era has gotten us closer to understanding the human experience than we've ever been. We are all being exposed for the imperfect, ****ed-up, idiosyncratic people we truly are. We see the truth.
Now, I don't think our moral codes have caught up with the death of privacy just yet. We still hold people to impossible standards. We expect perfection...it's an unfair target. My belief is that over the next 10-15 years we will be more forgiving and more compassionate when people make mistakes, because we will understand that we ALL make mistakes.
Now, with all of that new world mumbo-jumbo out of the way...let me breach the original question:
Would I break the story? Yes. But I'd be exceptionally careful, I would triple-check my sources, I would reach out to the family and give them all the information I had and I'd be mindful and as respectful as possible. In short, I would be a real journalist (I'm not, incidentally).
Why? Because of what I said above. I don't believe his family would be ruined, I don't believe his legacy should be tarnished beyond recognition. If anything I think that story could lead to some serious and important questions to be asked about homosexuality, and how far away we are from true toleration. It furthers our understanding of this public man, and with understanding comes empathy.
Simply put, the sooner we can break down the myth of ethical and moral perfection and replace it with the truth the better off we all will be.
Now. I know a big part of the cold hard truth is that some people want to pick the bones, some media wants page views and print sales, and some journalists aren't going to be respectful. I can only speak for myself and what I hold true.
Gary Speed wasn't perfect....and I have nothing but empathy for him, because I know what it's like to be flawed.
...Now I've not just put a bucket on my head...I've stuck it up my own arse. Fire away.
