The Moral Duty of Publicity

Abstract

Just over a decade after Louis Dembitz Brandeis co-wrote “The Right to Privacy,” which criticized nineteenth-century newspaper journalists’ intrusive practices, the attorney sent articles and research to numerous muckraking journalists. On one level, his involvement with investigative journalists seemingly contradicts that article's seminal call for judges to sanction gossip-seeking journalists. His correspondence with friends and journalists, however, suggests he was scolding the readers and publishers of keyhole journalists for failing to comprehend the moral duty of publicity. Those letters also indicate he supported muckraking journalism that exemplified his vision for the moral duty of the American press. He recruited journalists to join his campaigns that used publicity to protect individuals against exploitation by keyhole journalists, corporate monopolies, and governors.