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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.