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

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

- 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

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

- Roger Mudd

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

- 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

Sexual behavior was also generally considered off limits.

- Roger Mudd

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

- 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

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

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