News of New York governor Elliot Spitzer being involved with a prostitution ring caused The New York Times website to sustain serious delays on Monday the minute it was posted around 2 pm.

There was a 60% increase in traffic and 20 seconds increase in average load time for two hours. New York Times spokesperson Diane McNulty comments that the only other times the website has had the same overwhelming activity was on September 11, 2001 and November 12, 2001 when American Airlines Flight 587 crashed.

Roy Peter Clark, Senior Scholar of the Poynter Institute, questions the ethical aspect of the reporting, wondering where "public interest and private morality collide." He has developed a tool dubbed "The Wheel of Ethics" that describes "the most common justifications for certain news judgments in these kinds of cases." Some approaches include:

- "Truth Teller": Believes in providing all potentially relevant information, so collects as much information as possible then tests accuracy and relevance later.
- "Do-Not Disturber": Believes there is no necessary relationship between public behavior and personal choices, so does not publish private information
- "Info Spreader":  Believes that all knowledge is relevant and "when in doubt, publish."

For the entire "Wheel of Ethics", read Clark's article.

Sources: Huffington Post,The New York Observer, Yahoo News through I Want Media