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.
Roger Mudd

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

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

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

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.
Roger Mudd

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

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

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

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.
Roger Mudd

Sexual behavior was also generally considered off limits.
Roger Mudd


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.
Roger Mudd

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

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

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.
Roger Mudd