Later, as a young professional at The Washington Post and The (Newark) Star-Ledger, I learned that even at respectable papers, the standards for behavior in journalism were far more lax than they were in other industries.
It makes sense in context after rumors surfaced in respectable papers a few weeks ago that Uruguayan international Diego Forlan would be a Toronto FC player any day now.
And not just women who are fortunate enough to get column space in respectable papers.
"We have always been willing to take risks in ways that respectable American papers would simply not be prepared to do," said Tim Luckhurst, a former editor of The Scotsman and now a journalism professor at the University of Kent.
It quoted extracts, apparently from a 45-year-old Ralph Miliband, saying his "disdain for Britain" included "Eton and Harrow, Oxford and Cambridge, the great clubs, the Times, the church, the army, the respectable Sunday papers".
Clara Petacci's love letters being run by the column-ful in a respectable Republican paper, Il Messagero.
"Charles," the paper said, "a respectable, respected and entirely worthy prince … is adding to his other accomplishments a wife".
For the rest of us, the vendor who has set up his table at your subway stop sells a surprisingly respectable version — in paper, not straw — for $15 or $10 or even $8.
Perhaps the 14 year old who sends too many text messages and relies on less-than-respectable sources for papers also knows how to do things -- in particular, filter and assess information online -- that her parents do not.
Williams's one-sack, five-tackle performance makes for a respectable game on paper, but over all this season, his impact on one of the league's most ineffectual front sevens has been minimal.
It's this soul that Terence McNally is seeking to expose in his 1995 play, "Master Class," revolving around the opera singer Maria Callas, which is currently receiving a highly respectable production at Paper Mill Playhouse.
