Privacy, as defined by Judge Thomas Cooley (1888, p. 29), is "the right to be let alone." As the electronic media expands its reach to all parts of the globe, and twenty-four-hour news services are increasing their desire for time-filling material, federal and state courts are seeing more and more lawsuits that deal with the violation of privacy. In their rush to beat the deadline, reporters may find themselves on the wrong side of a privacy tort. While libel cases make the news, and make newsrooms shudder, it is the tort of privacy that the journalist is more likely to be charged with in civil court.

Privacy entered the legal arena in 1903, when the state of New York passed a statute that made it a misdemeanor and a tort to use someone's name or picture for trade purposes without prior consent. The legislature was reacting to...