Go read some other blog for a change. You will if you want to discover THE TRUTH!
...oh, what the hell, a couple thoughts following up the post below. It's true that the media has never been very consistent with standards about when private lives should be allowed to remain private. I don't just mean that they fail to live up to some ideal standard, I mean that there doesn't seem to be any consistent standard which they even pretend to adhere to. I'm sure individual reporters and editors do have such a thing, but overall it's pretty random.
As for media figures potentially being caught up in this, aside from personal hypocrisy their potential for being fair game is in direct proportion to the degree to which they are "celebrities" rather than simply journalists. There are no clear guidelines here, of course, though at a first pass those who have a tendency to market themselves as a brand rather than simply marketing their work start moving into celebrity territory. If Britney Spears' private life is fair game, then perhaps Tim Russert's is as well (no I'm not suggesting something here). Russert crossed clearly into that territory when he when he used his celebrity status to market a book about himself. Being a teevee figure moves you into celebrity status, though that of course isn't true of all journalists who make appearances on the teevee. If it's about you, you're a celebrity, if it's about what you're reporting, you're not.
