Privacy after Death? (3)

 S-Town, a podcast from Serial and This American Life, came out in March of this year. It tells the story of one man. The first few episodes make the listener think that this is going to be a true crime podcast, much like Serial. But it turns into something else. A man, John, living in Alabama contacted a producer of This American Life, Brian Reed, about a supposed crime and cover up that occurred in his town. There is no crime. The podcast turns into an exploration of John and his life. He is quite eccentric. However, he passes away. But that does not stop Reed from continuing his attempt to know and understand John. Eventually the podcast reveals some very personal and private things about John, that throughout his life he had kept pretty secret. He looked into his love life, sexual orientation, and other private matters. Because this podcast was finished after John died there is no way to know whether he would be okay with having all this information about him made very public (this podcast was downloaded 10 million times in its first four days of being published).  

This brings up some ethical questions about privacy, specifically privacy after death. But I could not help but think about it when reading about privacy torts. This podcast would seem to violate the disclosure of a private matter tort (Tedford & Herbeck 115). There are three conditions that must be met to make a privacy violation actionable. That the information was publicized to the world; the information must be offensive to a “reasonable person;” and the information must be about the person’s private life (Tedford & Herbeck 117).  In the case of S-Town, the story was most definitely broadcast to, and reached the public. The story was about private matters, there is no denying it. When you listen to the podcast--especially in the last few episodes--you know you are hearing about parts of John’s life that is not meant to be public. I think it could be argued that some of the content would be considered offensive by a reasonable person. And if not offensive, then definitely unusual or strange. Some of the content is probably stuff that the reasonable person would not want broadcast to 10 million plus people.

There is no question that if John was still alive, this podcast would violate his privacy to the extent that he could sue and probably win—the only question would be about the podcast’s offensiveness. In reality, this podcast probably would not have been made if John did not die. That raises questions about the privacy of the deceased who may not have family or anyone to protect them and their privacy after death. Do the dead still deserve privacy?

Sources:

Tedford, Thomas L., and Dale A. Herbeck. Freedom of speech in the United States. 8th ed., State      College, PA, Strata Publishing, Inc., 2017.