Read the book Voltaire's bastards by John Ralston Saul where he writes about persecution of authors and cartoonists throughout history. PEN Intl also keeps a current list of authors targeted by the state, lawyers, or media. Rowling probably wants to be able to write adult content without it affecting her children's books so used a pen name, because phony conservative media can easily freak out and pressure stores to rip it off shelves. Happened before with other authors.
Authors have never been persecuted on mass for simply being authors. No one refuses jobs, housing, etc because one is an author. Gay people have. Hardly any one keeps being an author secret.
Of course individual authors have been persecuted for specific reasons.
Not sure where you're going with this so I'll avoid the obvious snarky counter-examples...but are you arguing that if someone designates something as a secret, it is absolutely wrong to uncover it?
Not sure where i'm going either! I'm just trying figure out whether I would publish the story if I was editor of The Sunday Times.
Clearly there are cases where exposing someone's secret is the wrong course of action (eg. someone being gay).
Clearly there are cases where exposing someone's secret is the right course of action (eg. a corrupt politician)
What I'm interested in is the middle ground - where exposing a secret does not harm the 'owner' of the secret, but also does not really benefit the general public. In such cases shouldn't we respect the wishes of the person who is keeping the secret?
I don't think either is punishable by law, but if you were a direct friend of that person, it would be a violation of their trust in you in both cases.
Are you serious? It's not ok to out someone as gay as that could have huge impacts on their life and relationships. Secondly I haven't seen anyone praise the outing of Rowling as the author of this book. I'd be surprised if the lawyer who leaked it didn't get fired.
