In his Crisis Guru Commentaries, Jim Lukaszewski provides real answers to real questions about your most critical communications problems and issues.

This issue was triggered by the question below.

To submit a question, please direct it by e-mail to crisisguru@e911.com.  Be sure to include your full name, affiliation, address, and telephone number.  All published questions will be identified by title and industry only. Your confidentiality will be protected.

Question:

Dear Crisis Guru:

I read and appreciated your article in the recent issue of Public Relations Strategist. I have a question and need your thoughts.

Last month our neighbor's home and, subsequently, our home were destroyed by a fire. Following the incident, I had the unique experience of being a person in the news. Our neighborhood and community flooded us with donations of clothing, furniture, and money. One morning I woke to find an article in the local news about some children from our neighborhood who had sold cookies and collected donations for our family. Let me just say, it is tremendously humbling to know little children are raising money for you.

Following this incident, a woman at my work lost her husband in a car crash. Her disabled son was also severely injured. Our employees initiated a large (and successful) fundraiser on her behalf. A local reporter got wind of the fundraising efforts and requested information on how much money was raised.

Given my own experience, I was inclined to deny her request to protect what I perceived as personal financial information. Had it been a fundraiser for an organization, I would have gladly released the information. The reporter pursued the matter, stating that there was a public right to know. While I agree there was a desire to know, I question whether there was a "right" to know.

I would sincerely appreciate your thoughts on this matter.

Community Relations Partner

Answer:

Dear “Need My Thoughts”:

Thankfully, we are a land of individual rights, and have inherent rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and to be secure in our personal lives. We also have the right “to be left alone.” Nowhere in any governing document for our democracy do the words, "the public has the right to know" appear. In fact, the founding fathers were very careful to preserve individual rights against the government and other potentially oppressive forces.

The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

In the First Amendment to our Constitution there is the right to freedom of speech, which means the personal choice to speak, or to not speak. In that same amendment, the press is also granted the protection that the government shall make no law that abridges press activities. However, while the media can hassle government and public officials all they want, this amendment does not empower the media to hassle private citizens or businesses. Media cooperation by private citizens and other private entities is purely voluntary. Americans have, as Justice Brandeis wrote, “the right to be left alone.”

My sense is that the moneys collected and donated are clear and private expressions of concern, and are private matters between the family, the donors, and the IRS. Who would agree that the requirement to pay taxes should make personal taxes a public matter? Even if those affected collected government payments such as welfare or flood insurance, these matters do not require public disclosure. Under our Constitution it is the recipient's choice whether to disclose or not.

Tell the reporter to cool her heels. If she doesn't, give her name and describe her behavior in a blog, and start sending it around to the people who have contributed and let them take care of it. They will set her straight quickly. And, they are the public she claims to represent as having the so-called right to know.

This kind of arrogant behavior is one of the key reasons reporters and the legacy media are held in such low regard, and why newspapers especially are collapsing. The American people continue to search for the meaningful information these older legacy mediums, including network television used to provide.

The question of who, aside from the reporter's editor and the jealous neighbor or relative who tipped off the media, among the public wants to know, and why is irrelevant. In America, lawful private acts get to remain private.

Good luck,

Jim Lukaszewski