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