How you look at it
It depends on how you look at it, they say, and some claim it's "who you are" that makes the difference.
Your home town newspaper often is blamed for reporting negative news, "it makes us look bad" is the claim. They'd rather overlook items which put their friends or relatives in bad light.
This is especially true of public figures, folks who are "in the news" on a regular basis. When a person becomes a public figure there is a loss of personal privacy. Sally Smith from Springfield can get caught shoplifting and it isn't big news. Winona Ryder is. The O.J. Simpson trial made big headlines because he was a public figure.
If the newspaper editor would be arrested on a drunk driving charge, a banker take bankruptcy, or a school board member get caught for shoplifting, it would be headline material. Mr. or Mrs. Private Citizen could be charged with the same offenses and not produce a ripple.
Years ago a colorful local personality had a penchant for publishing nasty hate messages against political officials (who are public figures). Once he mentioned that the governor's wife was a bitch. After it was explained to him that the wife is not a public figure, he didn't make that mistake again. A guy in southeast Kansas made nasty references about the sheriff and got away with it for years, until he included the sheriff's wife once, which was too much.
Some public figures attempt to keep their private life anonymous. When rednecks complained that "mere movie actor" Lee Marvin was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery alongside two- and three-star generals, some other folks recalled how former Marine private Marvin told about being wounded in the invasion at Iwo Jima.
He received the Navy Cross, outranked only by the Medal of Honor.
Marvin told Johnny Carson, on live TV, that others who received the Navy Cross did more than he did to earn it. He said his sergeant, who led the invasion by standing on the beach waving his men forward, was "the bravest man I ever knew." He told Johnny, "What he did for his Cross made mine look cheap." The two men remained friends after the war.
As they brought the wounded Marvin off Mount Suribachi, he vividly recalled passing Sgt. Bob Keeshan on the way down. The world knows him as Captain Kangaroo.
— Bill Meyer
