- How much should a senior public figure be judged on, and accountable for, actions in his or her private life?

And Mosley is not a public official, as such, although he is a ‘public figure’ as head of the FIA.

He’s not a Government Minister, for example. – And even then, it’s questionable how much one should be held to account for actions in one’s private life, which are unrelated to one’s job.

Becuase:
-Everyone has a right to a right to privacy
-If private actions are unrelated to your job then why does it matter anyway?
-Who are we to judge?

I don’t have the answers. But it’s important to question the validity of holding a ‘public’ individual to account over such actions – and establish this basis – because only then can any resulting decision, debate or punishment be upheld.

However, I think that The News of The World can rest assured that it’s exposition of naughty sex tales, prying into the personal lives of celebrities will keep it afloat, and ahead of the broadcasters, for many years to come.

The News of The World sells copies based on two things – sex and football. Football, admittedly, gets analysed so comprehensively on television that by midnight on a Saturday, there is often little more to say.

But with sex exposés, the gutter press has its own niche. The Sunday tabloids routinely break stories like the Max Mosley scandal because it’s what they do best, and what sets them apart from television coverage.

TV will latch on to the sex scandals once they’re out in the public domain. But in the main, stories broken on TV fall into the bracket of harder, more ‘important’ news.

The likes of the News of The World dig for this type of ‘gem’ with great purpose. They also give people with time on their hands and aspirations to make an easy few thousand pounds great incentive to take sneaky photographs of stars during their more compromising situations.

This has always been the way of the Sunday tabloids, and it’s unlikely to change. Reading about adultery, deceit and romps on a Sunday is near on as traditional as a Sunday roast.

As long as The News of The World continues to dedicate itself to exposing the Max Mosleys of this world, then it will no doubt continue to hold off the broadcasters on the sex scandal front well into the digital age.

TV news is great for breaking news – but for me continuing stories work far better in the print media.

They go into more depth, look at things from a variety of different angles, and the reader cna cherry pick what they read.

For me this is the kind of thing that print media do very well, and is one reason why, in my opinion, it may change and evolve, but it will never become obsolete.

With incredible video footage of very unsexy role play and appalling german accents (vice girls make the worse actors), it was definitely a triumph of the internet on a very traditional and British sex scandal.

Although the sensational part of the story has lessered with time people will rightly not let it go because of the sexual and racial nature of the allegations. Also, when you are such a prominent figure as Mosley then you cannot just hide away from such serious allegations.

The issue has been raised again this week in several papers because of his visit to the Jordan rally instead of going to the Spanish Grand Prix. Any slightly unusual behaviour from Mosley is going to get great attention.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/apr/25/formulaone.rallying

Mosley has tried everything to diffuse the situation from claiming the accusations to be false and stating that he is going to retire soon anyway so he does not need to step down.

http://www.inthenews.co.uk/sports/formula-one/sport/general-sport/mosley-vows-stand-and-fight-until-tenure-ends-in-2009-$1219642.htm

Eventually, however, I think there can only be one way that this issue can go. Mosley will have to leave his post and if all what has been written about his infamous scandal is true then it will be about time!