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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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