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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.