I was assuming he was positing it as an absurd example: he is clearly not a public figure, and was wrongly accused of something on the front page. Also, the dis

I was assuming he was positing it as an absurd example: he is clearly not a public figure, and was wrongly accused of something on the front page. Also, the distinction between public figure and private citizen is clearly not whether or not they are newsworthy; such a distinction, as you point out, would always come up "public figure" by definition. I was going to explain the rational used, but Wikipedia to the rescue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_figure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_figure