The dailies have been engorged with titillating stories over the past couple weeks.

And they make irresistible summer reading. Who'd skip a story with a headline like, "Police collar priest on nude jog" (Rocky Mountain News, Aug. 9).

I count on editors to leave stories like this out of the newspaper, if they're not newsworthy, so I don't waste time discussing them at the proverbial water cooler.

Not to mention the harm they inflict on those in the media spotlight.

Father Robert Whipkey, who got caught jogging naked at 4:30 a.m., was ticketed by police on obscenity charges, and he's a priest.

His arrest is a valid story, though overdone - especially Tuesday with the Rocky's ridiculous photo of the empty track where Whipkey allegedly jogged in his birthday suit.

But 9News should be ashamed of itself for breaking the story Aug. 9 about Chief District Judge Edward W. Nottingham's drunken evening at a strip joint and use of a dating Web site.

The Rocky ran a Nottingham story the next day, based on 9News' scoop, while nothing appeared in The Denver Post until Sunday, even though 9News and the Post have a partnership.

"We made the decision to wait until we were able to look at the transcripts and other documents ourselves, and we wanted to try to talk to Nottingham and his wife before publication," Post Managing Editor Gary Clark e-mailed me Thursday, adding that "our decision was based on our intent to be thorough, accurate and fair."

Fantastic decision, particularly nowadays when so many news outlets jump to report a story just because their competitors ran with it. It's too bad the Rocky chose the path of recklessness.

And it's too bad the Post eventually decided to run the story at all, though the allegation that the FBI is investigating Nottingham about violating workplace computer rules might have deserved a few paragraphs.

There's not a strip of evidence that Nottingham did anything illegal.

Coverage in the dailies (one piece in the Post; three in the Rocky) has repeatedly quoted the judicial code of ethics, as if this makes the story newsworthy. The code reads: "A judge must avoid all impropriety and appearance of impropriety."

But the dailies have failed to find experts other than 9News legal affairs analyst Scott Robinson, quoted in the Rocky Aug. 10, who believe Nottingham's behavior violated the ethics code. And no countervailing opinions have been offered.

To run Nottingham through the media meat grinder based on the unchallenged opinion of one lawyer is wrong. Journalists should have substantial evidence before they air this type of story.

Rounding out the excitement, there's the Aug. 11 piece in the Rocky about the possible replacement of the Rev. Ted Haggard, who resigned after allegations that he had sex with a male prostitute.

Brady Boyd, who's auditioning for Haggard's job, was "haunted by demons" in his youth, according to the Aug. 11 Rocky, which quoted Boyd as saying he "experimented with marijuana, alcohol and sex."

I'm glad neither paper tried to dig up more details on this, like what kind of sex he had.

This religious man doesn't deserve a media foray into his personal life just because his predecessor endured one.

White power. It was front page news Aug. 9 that minorities now outnumber whites in Denver.

But what's the population of minorities in boardrooms? Three percent of board members of Fortune 500 companies are Latino. Nine percent are African-American.

As for senior managers, about 10 percent are people of color, according to Catalyst, a nonpartisan research organization.

The dailies should have included these types of figures in their coverage of the minorities-white population shift.

Regulate TV news. Some people throw up their hands and say there's nothing we can do about the mayhem and fluff on local TV news.

Not so.

The government just fined KWGN thousands of dollars for breaking federal rules that limit broadcast time for commercials during children's programs.

A sensible regulation, right?

Well, how about mandating that local TV and radio news shows, broadcast over the public airwaves, dedicate five minutes each day to campaign coverage or candidate speeches during the months leading up to an election?

Or how about mandating that they reduce the price of election commercials, beyond the modest reduction currently mandated, to stop runaway campaign spending and to give politicians who are not super-rich a fairer shot?

The federal government can do this and more, without censorship.

Jason Salzman, president of Cause Communications and board chairman of Rocky Mountain Media Watch, is the author of Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits. Reach him at salzmanj@RockyMountainNews.com.

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