His personal history has absolutely nothing to do with the present, and it does nothing to serve the public interest. It’s “chickens**t journalism,” as Fox News’ Brit Hume put it.

Nothing about what Dao did 15, 10, and even five years ago has anything to do with what happened on that flight. United did everything wrong here, including overbooking the flight, demanding passengers give up their seats for airline employees and then calling in law enforcement muscle.

That Dao has dirt on his record doesn’t change what United did. It certainly doesn’t justify the airline. It’s not as if United knew about the doctor’s past.

What happened to Dao Sunday was a gross overreach, and United displayed a foul disregard for basic human decency.

Nearly as foul: Dredging up things a private citizen reportedly did more than a decade ago in reaction to a story involving abuse from law enforcement officials and a major corporation. From a journalism perspective, airing Dao’s dirty laundry in response to United’s actions is the exact opposite of “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.”

For digging into the doctor’s past, we have the Louisville Courier-Journal and Washington ABC News affiliate WJLA to thank.

The Courier-Journal report, which seemingly took the police’s side in suggesting Dao bloodied himself on his armrest, was met with fierce pushback, prompting the editor to defend their work.

“There’s been previous coverage of the guy,” Joel Christopher, the paper’s executive editor, told the New Republic. “That’s how people in the newsroom knew who he was. It was a fairly high-profile case. It was a case that stuck in people’s minds because it was high-profile.”

He added that the Courier-Journal’s critics, “need to make sure they’re commenting on it with full context and perspective.”

“I think there are a lot of people who are being stoked by the social media mob mentality,” he said. “It’s easy to get outraged. It’s a little bit harder to do some homework on the topic before you tweet out an opinion.”

Though an argument can be made Dao’s personal history is of interest to the community the Courier-Journal serves, it doesn’t excuse the paper for suggesting United apologized (it hadn’t) or that the doctor passively hurt himself as he was forcibly removed by law enforcement agents.

WJLA’s Lisa Fletcher also drew criticism Tuesday after she proudly tweeted to her followers, “My desk is covered [with] court and legal docs re troubled past of the doctor pulled off United.”

She quickly given an earful by understandably disgusted social media users, and she eventually deleted her original post.

Fletcher followed up later with the following remarks: “Hey Twitter, I know my tweet didn’t sit well. I can understand how it looks one-sided. I can assure you, it’s not.”

“By covering this side of the story, we’re not defending United in any way. We’ll continue to address their role in this situation,” she added. “Having said that, violent threats against me – simply for giving all angles of the story – are not okay.”

Agreed on the threats of violence part. There’s no excuse for that. However, she is still wrong for seeking to re-litigate Dao’s “troubled past” even though it has nothing to do with anything.

In a story involving law enforcement, a faceless corporation and video of a bloodied, abused citizen, the focus shouldn’t be on the citizen’s possibly sordid personal history. That certain journalists needed to be reminded of this Tuesday is shameful.