Journalists, who are skeptical to begin with, simply do not like to be lied to or made fools of.

The relationship between press and politician - protected by the Constitution and designed to be happily adversarial - becomes sour, raw and confrontational.

And what it depends on, of course, is whether the story itself is worth the ethical compromise it requires and whether the competition is onto the story.

But the time has come for journalists to acknowledge that a zone of privacy does exist.

No matter what name we give it or how we judge it, a candidate's character is central to political reporting because it is central to a citizen's decision in voting.

For decades, the journalistic norm had been that the private lives of public officials remained private unless that life impinged on public performance.

Journalists, who are skeptical to begin with, simply do not like to be lied to or made fools of.