Did “Dr. Phil” Betray Trust of Troubled Singer Britney Spears?
Jan 14th, 2008 • Posted in: NewsThe question has become a matter of public debate in what some feel should be a private matter
LOS ANGELES
The very public troubles of singer Britney Spears escalated into an ugly and equally visible moral dilemma last week as a television pop psychologist spoke publicly about a visit he made to Spears during her recent hospital stay.
According to a report from the BBC, a spokeswoman for Spears’s mother said that television personality Dr. Phil McGraw, who counsels troubled people on his highly rated television show, was not supposed to speak publicly about the visit.
Spears was hospitalized following bizarre behavior when police were called to her home to intervene in a custody dispute over her two sons.
McGraw publicly commented that Spears was in “dire need” of intervention and, according to the Associated Press, he had planned to do an entire show on Spears’s breakdown.
Mental health professionals criticized McGraw for showing up at Spears’s hospital room shortly before her discharge and speaking publicly about the visit.
The family complained that even though “Dr. Phil” was technically not her doctor, he should have kept the conversation and details of the encounter confidential, according to a report from MTV.
But as the AP reported, McGraw had none of it, firing back on an entertainment program: “Somebody needs to step up and get this young woman into some quality care — and I do not apologize one whit, not one second, for trying to make that happen,” he said.
McGraw also contended that it was Britney Spears’s parents who originally concocted the idea of appearing on his show, according to the New York Post.
The case has sparked vigorous debate within the media, including a recent opinion piece from Roy Peter Clark, senior scholar at the Poynter Institute, a media think tank.
“Is there a way to cover the Britney Spears story responsibly?” Clark wrote. “I’m no Puritan when it comes to gossip, and I’ve grown up reading the tabloids, but there is clearly a danger zone, when life and health are at stake, when the best thing the press can do is back off. That time for Spears is probably now. Avoiding the daily soap opera does not require journalists to abstain from critical and analytical pieces on celebrity, addiction, gender, and mental illness. And perhaps the troubles of a particular celebrity might be an occasion to turn the camera away to the less intriguing but more important cases of mental illness in our own communities.”
Sources: Poynter.org, Jan. 11 — New York Post, Jan. 11 — AP, Jan. 10 — BBC, Jan. 10 — MTV, Jan. 10.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Jan. 8 — Related Newsline Commentary, Feb. 26, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 27, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 6, 2007.
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