Invasion of privacy is an issue raised often in the media. The press argues that the public has the "right to know" private information about public figures. In many cases I think the media divulges intimate details about people's lives that the public does not need to know. An example of this is when the newspaper USA Today forced former tennis champion Arthur Ashe to reveal he had the AIDS virus.
             Arthur Ashe had kept his illness secret for four years until an unknown person told USA Today that Ashe was infected with AIDS. Doug Smith, a friend of Ashe who worked for the sports section of the paper was asked to follow up on that lead. Smith, troubled, told Ashe about his dilemma. Ashe was infuriated by this and immediately phoned managing sports editor Gene Policinski. Ashe did not confirm or deny the allegation, arguing that he was no longer a public figure. But Policinski disagreed, and insisted that the public had the right to know. Ashe knew the newspaper would continue to investigate the matter, and he expected to see the story published the next day.
             Ashe decided to organize a press conference where he himself would announce his condition to the public instead of having the newspapers report it first. I think he made the right decision under the circumstances because it was better for the public to hear his side of the story first and not read it in the papers where the facts may not have been reported correctly or might have been misleading.
             However, I strongly feel that Ashe's illness was nobody's business and that there was no legitimate reason for anyone to know about it other than his close friends and relatives. I think USA Today put Ashe in a really uncomfortable position because they forced him to choose between admitting something he wasn't ready for the world to know yet or lying, which he knew would bother his conscience, as it had in the past when he lied about not having a...