As I was skimming the Money section of the Omaha World Herald, I came across a tiny section on page 3 that I would normally have overlooked, except for the information it contained: the listings of people in Omaha who filed for bankruptcy that week. As I saw the names, addresses and types of bankruptcy people had filed for, I wondered “Why does anyone need to know this?”

At one time, printing the names of bankruptcy filers in the newspaper served a purpose. The newspaper used to be the only source of news and if banks wanted to see if a person was bankrupt, the paper was the place to go. But now, since bankruptcy filings are public information, banks can check a person’s credit history on the Internet with just a click of a button. The only reason for newspapers to still even publish this information is if there is a demand for it.

The fact that bankruptcy filings are still published in newspapers just shows the continued desire in our society to gossip about people’s financial status, regardless of whether they are poor, middle class or wealthy. The Iowa Press Citizen publishes the salaries of all University of Iowa employees on their website every year, and Warren Buffet’s secretary was recently admonished in the news circuit for how much she makes.

This is evident even in everyday situations, when people ask someone how much they spent on something, or how much money they currently have in their bank account. Unless how much money someone has directly affects how much you then subsequently make, why should it matter how much money a person has? This information has no personal effect on us, so why is it that as a society we are so particularly obsessed with other people’s money?

Newspapers still publish people’s financial information in order to help others deal with their own financial insecurities. This makes it easier for them to look at other people’s salaries or how someone else has to pay off their debts, rather than making them seem like pathetic stalkers for looking this up. If someone is going through some hard times financially, it may make them feel better to see that someone is worse off than they are, or if they are jealous of someone’s financial success, they can feel somewhat satisfied when they read in the newspaper about how that person lost all of their money.

This article may seem like an overreaction to a miniscule section of the paper, but this is a section that could be devoted to so many other things. Instead many newspapers still choose to use this space to publish the bankruptcy filings of ordinary people. This is taking time away from what is what is actually “newsworthy,” illustrating the fact that what makes it into the news is driven by the general public’s materialism and desire for gossip.

While this desire to know one another’ s business is something that will probably never go away in our society, it is at least something to which valuable news space should not be devoted. The Money section of the newspaper should be devoted to a recent event or issue that can directly have an impact on people’s finances, rather than fueling gossip by focusing on people who do not desire to have their finances aired.