WSU journalism lecturer Jack Lessenberry comments on privacy issues of lottery winners...
Livingston Daily.com
"Bill opponents want transparency kept for lottery winners"
by Christopher Behnan
Multimillion-dollar lottery winners should be required to make their names public as part of the "price of admission" of playing, a critic of a winner-privacy bill said. "Nobody makes you run for office, run naked down the street or play the lottery. The price of admission should be the public is going to know if you've won this money," said Jack Lessenberry, a columnist and journalism professor at Wayne State University. Yet state Sen. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, said extending anonymity to large-pot winners would protect Michiganders' safety by keeping "con men and scam artists" at bay when lottery winnings from multistate games are announced.