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

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

The ethics of editorial judgement, however, began to go though a sea change during the late 1970s and 80s when the Carter and Reagan Administrations de-regulated the television industry.

Most journalists now believe that a person's privacy zone gets smaller and smaller as the person becomes more and more powerful.

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.

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.

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