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

The written tone and the spoken tone change and the reporters' disbelief in the veracity of the government spreads to the readers and the viewers.

The networks found themselves having to compete for an increasingly Balkanized audience.

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

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

Given what the media have put the country through this past decade, it must come as a surprise to most Americans that the press has a code of ethics.

As electronic journalism came to be evaluated for its cost effectiveness, the network world began breaking up.