Sickest Part of the Story: Arthur Ashe’s Loss of Privacy
Sometimes we humans react to things with our brains, but more often than not we react with our gut. And as we used to say when we were kids and didn’t feel well, I got a gut ache.
I’ve got a major gut ache after reading that Arthur Ashe has AIDS. But as sad as that is, for a class act like Ashe, the sadness was quickly overridden by disgust at how the news got out.
Ashe announced that he’d known since 1988 that he had AIDS, but hadn’t wanted it publicized. He had told a circle of people and had his wife and daughter tested to see if they had been infected. They have not, he said. Someone in the circle apparently couldn’t keep a secret, and “ratted” on him, as Ashe put it.
USA Today learned of Ashe’s condition and asked him about it. At that point, Ashe decided he’d better speak out on his own terms instead of someone else’s.
The story made headlines around the world. It is, by any newspaper definition, front page news.
So what’s wrong?
What’s wrong is that in the rush to disclose virtually every bit of information that becomes available, human beings are sometimes reduced to incidental objects. People don’t matter, only their conditions or circumstances matter.
It didn’t matter that as a human being, Ashe had the right to determine how or when he revealed his life-threatening illness. As he correctly pointed out, he’s not serving the public trust or is accountable to anyone with regard to his long-term health.
From watching Ashe over the years, I’m guessing he probably would have gone public with his AIDS condition after his health deteriorated to the point that it was noticeable. His decision to wait is a right that he deserves as a human being and doesn’t forfeit just because he’s well known.
From our earliest days of Journalism 101, we’re taught that newspapers don’t suppress news, they publish it. I was also taught that responsibility came with that. If it doesn’t, then the whole journalism business takes on a bloodless nature that I had never associated with the profession.
We print things all the time that people don’t want to see in the paper. But that involves scandal, or wrongdoing or the endless array of human foibles.
All Ashe did was get sick. All he did was get a disease that is foremost in everyone’s thoughts these days. And only because he’s Arthur Ashe the tennis player--and not Arthur Ashe the CPA--did he discover that he has no fundamental right of privacy.
We in the press used to worry about Big Brother knowing too much. We’ve fought historic battles to maintain the sanctity of the private citizen against government intrusion or unbridled power. But the Ashe situation raises a scary question about how far some in the press will intrude into a person’s innermost affairs.
The fact is that no journalistic ethic would have been broken by sitting on the story until he was ready to tell it.
I know the news media is a murky world to many people outside the business. They wonder how judgments are made. I’ve always felt comfortable that news judgments are made by people who are guided by the public interest.
I see no way that the public interest was advanced by taking away a basic human right from Arthur Ashe. He didn’t waive any rights that the rest of us have just because he excelled at tennis. And if the argument is that forcing the story put a “human face” on AIDS, the comeback is simple: Only idiots haven’t put a human face on AIDS by now. The news also doesn’t significantly advance AIDS awareness. Ashe was infected years ago through a blood transfusion during heart surgery--not through some sort of risky sexual contact that might provide a caution to others. And experts say the blood supply today is safe.
Yes, I’m disgusted. I hate to see a guy like Ashe feel forced to hold a press conference to announce he has AIDS. The news will now dog him for whatever time he has left. He didn’t want it that way, and no one had the right to dictate the terms of his existence.
My gut doesn’t always agree with my brain when it comes to decisions that newspapers make.
Yeah, my gut tells me that Ashe has been wronged.
But in this case, my brain tells me the same thing.
Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.
