t was a moment you might expect on, say, Geraldo, but on Nightline? Ted Koppel's estimable ABC late-night news program opened Thursday with the promise that viewers would learn that the "crisis in the White House" might ultimately "come down to the question of whether oral sex does or does not constitute adultery."

He knew better, of course, and the opening was carefully hedged with cautions that viewers might find such a subject "inappropriate" or "an offensive issue." But it was one of those startling little moments in television when the chronic viewer senses that a wall has been breached. The sort of come-on that has served for afternoon titillation had made it into the mainstream.

In the context of what Chris Bury, the Nightline correspondent, called President Clinton's "careful use of words in the matter of sex," he called attention to a report that on the suddenly famous Monica Lewinsky-Linda Tripp tapes, Lewinsky could be heard saying that she and the president had engaged only in oral sex, no intercourse, and the president had drawn a distinction for her between oral sex and adultery.

Bury led into this brief item by reminding the nation that in 1992, when an

Arkansas singer named Gennifer Flowers said she had had a romance with Clinton back in Arkansas, when he was that state's governor, the pair were reported to have been caught on tape discussing oral sex, and state troopers had said that Clinton had said oral sex was not adultery.

That was it. Not the sort of stuff that Geraldo Rivera got into with the resurfaced Ms. Flowers on his program the next night. Ms. Flowers recounted that she and Clinton were stimulated by the thought of disporting on the governor's lawn, pretty racy stuff by Nightline standards.

It cannot always be easy for television reporters to move between solid news and sort-of news and keep perspective or perhaps self-respect. The lines are fuzzy and growing ever fuzzier. And some of the more sober professionals seem troubled by it.

On that quasijournalistic enterprise, "Larry King Live," the other night, two reporters, Bill Plante and Wolf Blitzer, admitted to finding the current accusations against Clinton "an uncomfortable story." They agreed that they were not trying to be completely in the gutter. (Not long after, mention of a dress with semen on it was heard on 20/20, and Barbara Walters earnestly explained it is important because "the semen could become forensic evidence.") "Given what this society has become," the ever-inquiring King, who must surely bear a little responsibility for what the society has become, found himself asking, "can the private lives of public people ever be more private?"

Piety is a common recourse of the television gossip. For the dolled-up news concoctions that crowd cable and have increasingly infiltrated the networks, the latest Clinton story, with its opportunity to regurgitate accusations past like those of Paula Jones and Ms. Flowers, is irresistible.

The issue now for the most trusted news programs is not whether to cover, but how much coverage to give the story and in what spirit. The temptation to bring audiences in and hold them with naughty words is strong; perhaps the serious-minded Koppel may be having second thoughts about leading his program with the oral-sex phrase.

Copyright The New York Times, 25/1/98. Cortesia da Agência Estado.