When a person is elected to office, who in their inner circle is fair to criticize and why?
This is a question I’ve struggled with over the past week after the 18-year-old child of Colorado’s most notorious representative was plastered across local, state, national and even international news for his alleged legal wrongdoings. As the argument seemed to go, his alleged actions reflected a larger moral failing of his politician mother — whose name I refuse to mention — further proving she is unfit to be a legislator.
For the record, it is true; the teenager’s mom is unfit to be a legislator. It’s just that I’m not so sure she’s unfit because of her son’s misdoings so much as her own, and there’s plenty of evidence to support that statement without having to invoke her son. So what do we gain from reporting on him when he’s not the one running for office?
Given how many news outlets quickly splashed the story across their front pages, I seem to be among the minority with a squeamish reaction to publishing on a politician’s family, particularly their children.
And it’s not because I think the teenager should be exempt from public criticism, but rather that the severity of backlash he will likely receive is more due to who his mother is than his actions, and that feedback is objectively outsized. Notably, the extra attention could impact how his court case proceeds, and although I don’t have particularly high hopes for this person, that still doesn’t sit quite right with me.
There’s also the matter of finding myself reluctant to conclude how much we can hold someone accountable for the actions of their family members in the public’s eye. For example, is the father of a murderer partly to blame for his son’s killings?
According to a first-of-its-kind case, perhaps, if his son was able to perpetuate the killing due to his father’s oversight. But is every parent guilty of their children’s sins? Probably not, and I hesitate to set a precedent of revealing any and all family errors, especially when children are involved, for the sake of maybe.
But back to politics — what if the person in question is a politician’s spouse? Does their moral failing reflect on one’s ability to hold office and make decisions? Does it matter if the elected official wasn’t involved? What if it’s not a legal failing, but a moral one like cheating or lying? Do these matters truly impact one’s ability to legislate any more than they might impact a surgeon’s or a lawyer’s?
Some might say that by simply running for Congress one accepts that all family ties are on the table. Perhaps this is true, although again, I’m not so sure if that’s a good thing. I’ve also heard some people say that publishing the son’s acts in this case was valid as the lawmaker had deliberately attacked the families of her opponents and attempted to use her family as a political shield, politicizing them herself. This is also true, and perhaps a tipping point here as people in glass houses generally shouldn’t throw stones.
Still, do two wrongs make a right here? When is it OK to knowingly drag children and family members through the mud for years? Are we better off in blowing up what should arguably be a local or regional news story at best into an international sensation if we haven’t learned anything new about the person holding office in doing so? I’m not so sure we are, and that’s a problem.
As it turns out, while I may not be in the majority on this opinion, it appears I’m not alone. Another Colorado journalist, Kyle Clark, recently suggested similar struggles, replying to an inquiry on why he wasn’t covering the story with the following tweet: “I wrestle with whether the actions of an adult son of a public figure are newsworthy, particularly the level of coverage I’ve seen. And especially because the adult son didn’t invoke the public figure to avoid consequences nor did the public figure make any excuses for the son.”
He’s right. Much of the focus on the lawmaker’s family at this point does feel like cheap shots to get clicks and agitate. Most people have long made up their minds about this lawmaker, which downgrades the newsworthiness of her family as there’s little new information we can learn about her morals that we don’t already know by her direct actions. Harping on the extent of her trashiness feels more like morbid curiosity than staying reasonably informed.
Yet here we are, many of us glued to the train wreck. It’s as if we’ve forgotten that there are real people impacted by our crass rubbernecking, including members of the family who are too young to control what’s happening. Shouldn’t their privacy matter at least a little?
I admit it’s easier to ask this question when you apply a little bit of empathy because I feel differently when the people in question are part of a family I actually care about. For example, if it were the Obamas’ adult children who messed up, I’d want to afford them a bit more privacy and empathy to work it out as a family, even if they were in the wrong.
So with this in mind, I ask again: Does dragging a representative’s barely legal son into international news still seem morally right or fair? Because I fear it isn’t. So why are we?
Trish Zornio is a scientist, lecturer and writer who has worked at some of the nation’s top universities and hospitals. She’s an avid rock climber and was a 2020 candidate for the U.S. Senate in Colorado. Trish can be found on Twitter @trish_zornio
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