Will Owen Wilson get to heal in private?
The breathlessness of many of today's stories recounting actor Owen Wilson's reported suicide attempt has made me cringe. (Full disclosure for the Us-Weekly-magazine conspiracy theorists among you: No, not because I have a secret crush on him. No, not because I secretly hope to interview him one day. And no, not because I want to use Mr. Wilson to win the affections of actor Vince Vaughn.)
Today, I'm seeing anonymous sources dishing this, that and the other about a Hollywood star who clearly has serious personal problems needing serious medical attention. I'm seeing the time stamps of police reports dutifully and meticulously noted as if to underscore the media watchdog's savvy and vigilance ("And hey! Look! Click here to see a PDF of the officer's actual handwritten report for yourself!"). I'm seeing the more official "business angles" exploring the impact this sad event might have on films either in the works or the midst of promotion (such angles are often little more than clumsy, high-brow excuses to cover what is essentially a very personal matter).
If only more journalists pounced as quickly and diligently on matters of true public importance.
I completely get the public personality-or-official lecture delivered in Media Law 101. Heck, I even get the far more advanced versions gleaned over the course of my career. You cast yourself into the limelight or get yourself elected to public office, and you ask for the scrutiny. You ask for the criticism, the leering, the praise, the fawning, the constant flashbulbs, the boatloads of letters and e-mail and the stupid guy begging for an autograph while you're in a public restroom. Once you enter that white-hot public spotlight, you can't leave it whenever you choose.
But journalists. What's their responsibility when an Owen Wilson has a breakdown and asks the media (and, by extension, the general public) to allow him to heal in private? He's no Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan or Nicole Ritchie driving under the influence on public streets. He's not even a Britney Spears, who has an incredible knack for taking her wackiness public.
Might this be a time when we let a prominent person who apparently struggles with depression have the solace and privacy he needs? I certainly hope so. And if, for some reason, a news organization feels absolutely compelled to report every detail of Wilson's recovery, perhaps it could do so within the context of actual public service. Of all the news accounts I checked before sitting down to write today, not one mentions a word about how to identify, treat, recover from or otherwise deal with debilitating depression.