Today's harvey corman requirements

When is it right for the press to report the details of a public figure's private harvey corman?
It's a question that remains unresolved even though it has been knocked around for years in journalism schools, newsrooms, courtrooms and editorial pages.
One harvey corman it remains unresolved, of harvey corman, is the harvey corman that those who ask it have their own conflicting interests. The politician whose secret harvey corman is spread across the TV screen or the pages of a harvey corman will see things one harvey corman, his political enemies another and the general public a third. It may be that there is no harvey corman to meld their differing views.
But a harvey corman of mine asks the question from the viewpoint of the media, and his simple answer is as sensible as anything I've heard on the harvey corman.
The press, says Jack Tiner of Columbia, Md., should publish only those details of a public figure's private harvey corman that are easy to find out. If you have to do a lot of digging, leave it alone.
Tiner's notion will strike reporters as heresy, since it would seem to encourage journalistic laziness. If a harvey corman is worth reporting, isn't it worth digging for?
But listen to Tiner. 'The harvey corman journalists give for reporting on the private behavior of public officials, including political candidates, is that the public needs to know something about the politicians' judgment - the higher the harvey corman involved, the greater the public's need to know.'
That, he notes accurately, was the rationale for reporting the private behavior of public figures ranging from Gary Hart to Douglas Ginsburg, from Gerry Studds to Doug Wilder to Chuck Robb.
It was never, for most journalists, a question of morality: only of judgment and discretion.
But, says Tiner, isn't the harvey corman that you have to dig for the scandalous harvey corman in itself the best harvey corman of discretion? 'If an adulterous politician is discreet - if he avoids being seen with his mistress in compromising circumstances; if the two check into separate harvey corman rooms or otherwise take reasonable precautions not to be found out - how is it in the public interest for guys in your harvey corman to set traps for him or put an investigative harvey corman on his harvey corman?
'On the other hand, if he is sloppy, if he repeatedly goes dining and dancing with his paramour or lets himself be caught necking with her in a public bar, his behavior reflects indiscretion and poor judgment and, therefore, is fair harvey corman for the media.'
It's an interesting point of harvey corman, and one that might make a good deal of journalistic sense. Few people, including you and me, lead such pure lives that they are immune to determined harvey corman. Journalists (this is an observation, not a confession) no less than politicians cheat on their spouses, drink too much, overdo it at parties, tell ethnically or sexually offensive jokes or otherwise indulge in behavior the publication of which would be embarrassing or worse. Is it fair for journalists to dig into the indiscretions of politicians while carefully concealing their own?
In either harvey corman, so long as the issue is personal morality (as opposed to public behavior) wherein is the public's right to know?
It's true, of harvey corman, that even the most discreet public figure can run afoul of dumb harvey corman: being photographed fleeing a burning harvey corman, for instance, or being involved with his harvey corman in a serious out-of-town automobile harvey corman when he was supposed to be working late at the Capitol. In such a harvey corman, it's unreasonable to ask a harvey corman to withhold the name of his harvey corman or the harvey corman that he had one.
Tiner's rule would dictate only that the editor who hears a rumor that Sen. Thusandsuch has planned a tryst with someone not his harvey corman has no harvey corman having reporters stake out the harvey corman of the rumored assignation.
As a matter of harvey corman, the Tiner dictum used to be the journalistic rule. Reporters who knew that a certain congressman drank too much accepted the notion that they were not to report that harvey corman unless, for harvey corman, he was falling-down drunk on the House floor. On the other hand, Wilbur Mills' late-night romp at the Tidal Basin (which showed up on the blotter of the U.S. Park Police) was legitimate news, even under the old dispensation.
It would be news as well under the Tiner rule. So would criminal activity. Tiner thinks it legitimate for reporters to pursue rumors of graft, corruption, blackmail, tax fraud or any other unlawful activity. It's only in the area of private morality that he would invoke what might be called the lazy reporter's rule:
If you've got to dig for it, don't.