The news that fits its times

Publishing the Nixon conversations was once controversial, but no longer. The man's dead, for one thing. And he taped his own conversations, thereby acknowledging their historical value himself. It's true that Nixon's anti-Semitism and racism are barely newsworthy anymore. But still, history is history, and if the tapes help flesh out the character of our 37th president, there's not much argument left for withholding them.

The harder call, as always, is about sex. When and what should we report about our leaders' sexual lives? In the old days, extramarital affairs by politicians such as the Kennedys were sometimes covered up by the press corps. It was a clubby thing, the gentlemanly approach. These days, however, such stories are less likely to be quashed, especially if the media can tie the infidelity to, say, a sexual-harassment suit or allegations of abuse of power, or some sort of hypocrisy beyond the mere breaking of marriage vows.

For instance, the media are a lot more likely to write about your arrest in a men's room sex sting if you've voted against gay-rights legislation. (Yes, that's you, former Sen. Larry Craig.) Hiring a prostitute is against the law, so you make yourself vulnerable if you're caught with one. (Especially if you've prosecuted them in the past, like former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.) Whatever you choose to do, don't lie about it to investigators. (President Clinton's lying, or fudging, did not serve him well.) And keep your hands off of underage congressional pages and interns. (Former Reps. Dan Crane and Gerry Studds.)

But those are the easy calls. A harder case was that of House Judiciary Chairman Henry J. Hyde's 33-year-old affair. (Not an affair with a 33-year-old, mind you, but an affair that had occurred 33 years earlier.) It was reported in 1998 by the online magazine Salon while Hyde was spearheading impeachment proceedings against Clinton. Many readers found it irrelevant because Hyde had broken no laws and his offense had been dredged up from the distant past.

Los Angeles -- and The Times -- had to grapple with the question of when to invade a politician's privacy in 2007 when Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was the subject of rumors, Internet reports and, eventually, a story in the L.A. Daily News about his love life. The day that story appeared, the mayor held a news conference confirming that he was having an affair with Telemundo anchorwoman Mirthala Salinas.