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.

In exchange for power, influence, command and a place in history, a president gives up the bulk of his privacy.

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.

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.

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

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

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