The electronic revolution has brought us many blessings, but it has also blindsided us with a tidal wave of pornography. In similar fashion, we are now getting a faceful of rotten journalism — journalistic pornography, actually — in which ratings are everything and truth is nothing.

As the Schwarzenegger story came into focus, these were our choices:

Publish it late in the campaign. Given the passions of the election, this would touch off an outcry against the newspaper. We had no illusion that it would be warmly received.

Hold it and publish after the election. This would prompt anger among citizens who expect the newspaper to treat them like adults and give them all the information it has before they cast their votes.

Never publish it. This could be justified only if the story were untrue or insignificant.

We, of course, chose the first option. Regrets? Not one.

When the story was published, Schwarzenegger admitted that he had "behaved badly" in the past and offered a general apology to any women he had offended. At another point, he said, "I have never grabbed anyone and pulled up their shirt and grabbed their breasts and stuff like that." But when asked whether he was denying all the stories about grabbing, he said, "No, not all." At still another point, he questioned the credibility of some of the women.

But the facts in the Times stories have not been seriously challenged.

The merit of an investigative story can be judged, to an extent, by what happens in its aftermath. In this case, the initial story reported that six women said they'd been sexually mistreated by Schwarzenegger. Two of the women were quoted by name. Four declined to be named, three fearing that they would be blackballed by the movie industry and one concerned that she would be publicly ridiculed.

Personally, I knew the stories were solid as Gibraltar, but I was worried that readers might see the evidence as thin.

In any case, it didn't take long for it to thicken. Soon after our first story, additional women began to come forward. Two appeared at press conferences to describe their ordeals with Schwarzenegger, and another did so at a political demonstration. Still more revealed their stories to The Times.