'I could not give him a passing grade for his delivery of policy speech, or for the question-and-answer session after he became prime minister." That's how the new Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan was described last week, as well as being called an intellectual lightweight, a bad cook, and a man with terrible fashion sense. Where did the slagging come from? An opposition leader, a political critic, a narky newspaper? Eh, no, rather from his wife. In the rather brilliantly titled book What on Earth Will Change in Japan After You Become Prime Minister? (presumably 'Yes We Kan' was already taken), Kan's wife Nonuko laid into the new premier by penning an extensive list of his failings.

With a wife like that, who needs mistresses? Well, Kan, actually. He had an affair in 1998. Anyway, apart from imagining how frosty that book launch was, it's interesting to see how it's not just that no one is immune to criticism, but that no one is immune from giving it either, even your life partner. In public. In a book. He wouldn't want to be too sensitive. In fact, who would want to be sensitive these days?

A public figure's partner giving out about them isn't anything new, but it cuts remarkably close to the bone. Every week, Heat and other magazines print embarrassing secrets, criticisms, dodgy anecdotes and other personal details of celebrities or reality television contestants via their 'best friends', 'sweethearts', family members and partners. The only way to be safe from this bombardment is obviously never to get anywhere near to being famous or on television in any capacity lest your mates sell you down the river with some inane 'exclusive' about your crap first kiss, your smelly feet, or some tenuously linked tragedy that occurred at some stage in your life.

Coverage of public figures seems to have completely changed the concept of 'if you don't have anything nice to say...' to 'if you don't have anything nice to say, then please send us 800 words on it plus some mortifying childhood photographs'. And relatives seem only too pleased to engage with the critical press. Lindsay Lohan's father and Amy Winehouse's father are rarely out of the papers or gossip websites blabbing criticisms about their children's failings when it comes to drugs or bad behaviour. You'd think with two of the most troubled twentysomethings in showbiz, their family members would have the sense and decency to shut up.

The more you spurn people, one of two things happen. (1). They become overly sensitive – which is rather counterproductive. Kelly Osbourne, the celebrity daughter of Sharon and Ozzy, recently admitted in an interview that she cries on the phone to her mother when magazines or newspapers are mean to her. (Her mother has in the past had a different tactic to reacting to nasty coverage in the press, she once posted a box of her own faeces to a journalist who called her children fat.)

(2). They become over-critical of all coverage. Nothing is correct, journalists are scum, the media is the enemy, don't believe anything in the papers, and so on.

This is all probably a reaction to the PR Iron Curtain that surrounded many celebrities in times gone by, where image and secrets were protected by going to huge lengths. Before we knew what any celebrity had for breakfast via their Twitter feed, or before they colluded with paparazzi to get nice pictures of them going in and out of Starbucks, or before there were live video streams of them heading to a hearing at a court house, or before they had blogs to bitch about a partner (anyone not following the venomous blog posts by singer Melissa Etheridge's ex-partner Tammy Lynn Michaels in the past couple of weeks, is seriously missing out), or before their ex-girlfriends recorded psychotic rants during phone calls for public consumption (thanks for showing us what you're really like, Mel Gibson) there were rules observed between the celebrity, the agent or PR person and the media outlet about give and take, not take and slate, as it is now. Apart from a few choice titles who sacrifice criticism of a subject for an exclusive interview, negativity rules.

On an almost daily basis, Brian Cowen berates the media for being negative about the economy, his government, the state of the nation and so on. It suits people like Cowen who have genuinely screwed up to give out about negativity. There's no particular reason to be positive about Cowen and co, but when negativity is an all-pervading mood in the coverage of public figures, it's hard to separate the suitably negative slant and the negative-for-the-sake-of-it slant.

Maybe we should start being slightly positive about some people, just so when we really need to give a kicking to those who deserve it, everyone knows it's not just being done for the laugh. God forbid that those poor rich public figures, along with Naoto Kan, be left wondering: where is the love?

umullally@tribune.ie