Time & Perspective Quote by Roger Mudd

A veteran broadcaster staking out a boundary always sounds a little like a man drawing a chalk line around his own profession. When Roger Mudd says, "the time has come", he frames privacy not as a timeless principle but as an overdue reform - a corrective to journalism's own drift. The phrasing is quietly accusatory: journalists have been acting as if no such zone exists, or as if public curiosity automatically vaporizes it.

The key move is in "acknowledge". Mudd isn't asking reporters to invent new ethics; he's implying the ethical reality has been there all along, ignored because the incentives rewarded ignoring it. That word carries institutional weight: acknowledgment is what you do when denial is no longer credible. It also signals a shift from individual discretion ("I won't run this") to professional consensus ("we agree there are limits"). In a media ecosystem where competitive pressure turns restraint into a liability, Mudd is arguing for a shared standard that makes restraint survivable.

Context matters: Mudd came up in an era when broadcast news sold itself on authority and trust, then watched that authority get reshaped by scandal-driven coverage, celebrity politics, and the creeping logic that everything is "relevant" if it draws an audience. His line lands as both confession and warning: if journalists can't define a private sphere, someone else will - through lawsuits, regulation, or public backlash. The subtext is self-preservation dressed as civic virtue, which is precisely why it works.