Why Secrets Are Best Kept as Secrets
In some strange, odd way, I really did not want to know.
Deep Throat is - according to Vanity Fair and confirmed by The Washington Post - just an old man living with his daughter in California. He has, like the rest of us who relished every minute of the Watergate Scandal, grown old. He is, we are told, allowed two glasses of wine with his dinner. It is like being told that Superman is really, well, you know, Clark Kent.
What's gone, what Vanity Fair has been taken from us, is one of the greatest kept secrets of our Baby Boomer time, wrested from the grip of the select few who'd vowed to keep it forever. The hiding of Deep Throat's identity took on a larger mythic status than any scoop Deep Throat provided, and we guarded the almost holy belief in Deep Throat.
At least it was to me. Deep Throat was the perfect, nameless god. Deep Throat represented the idea that reporters (and their background sources) could save the world, and that trust was still trust, and truth was still true. Once we had the hope that to bring down an evil Administration, you need only go to the shadows of an obscure parking garage. Now, people go to parking garages to get their cars and evil Administrations continue to rule our lives unpunished. Where's our hope?
Deep Throat is W. Mark Felt, former assistant director of the FBI during the Nixon administration. Who?
What could be more of a letdown than finding out who Deep Throat is? And for crissakes, finding it out in Vanity Fair with Nicole Kidman on the cover? And not really finding it out in Vanity Fair so much as feeling it crash-land across the Internet and the cable news networks, days before the magazine even hits the stands? How awful can it be watching it not resonate among people younger than 30. I doubt that either of my sons care to much about it. And you know what is even worse? Finding out that you yourself don't care that much anymore.
The concept of Deep Throat once set the rules of the New Journalism. You did not stop with "balancing" your story with quotes from "the other side." You kept digging until you had the truth. That's why being in journalism in the 70s was so exciting. Today, hard hitting journalist is digging up whether J. Lo has a new hottie.
It did help that the Great Secret had been given a dirty, porny nickname. That naturally came right from the swagger and irreverence of journalism's then-new era, asserting itself while cracking wise. In your face, Establishment. Up the Revolution!
Journalism schools, which in the 60s barely had enough people to put out a daily student newspaper, were suddenly overcrowded with people who all wanted to find the next Deep Throat. Everyone wanted to be Robert Redford (well, like who didn't!) IBM Selectrics were the writing machine of choice. Pay phones were how we communicated when we weren't at home or in the office. A cluttered desk was a sign of a serious worker. Drab newsrooms were OK. Reporters drank and smoked, and we didn't take crap from anyone.
Today you cannot even get a whiff of what it felt like. Then it was possible to go to a bar and tell a girl that you were a reporter and she was mightily impressed. It was like you too had some of the allure of Deep Throat. You were in the know. And you had secrets. Now she would tell you that she doesn't really ever look at the paper. Or worse, she only looks at it online (at best) or occasionally watches Fox News.
People are over their lust for reporters, but they still want Deep Throat. I know I do, but it's like sending signals in the sky to The Batman who never answers.
Gone is our tidy, narrow definition of evil, of corruption. The gotcha is now a tawdry exercise in minutiae, not a blow against the Establishment, against the Man. "What did he know and when did he know it" puts us to sleep. "Follow the money" is an exercise in Excel spreadsheets, occasionally praised by prize committees, but rarely read.
It turns out being in the dark about Deep Throat was more enthralling than holding it out to the light. Had he lived in this era, Deep Throat might not have lasted long. He'd be blogged to bits. The multitude of Right Wing blogs and e-publications would disprove him with their own Deep Throats. Fox News would pay him to reveal himself after a news cycle or two, and he'd walk away with a big book contract.
Was he a hero? I think so. An Administration who would hire thugs to burglarize their opponent's offices was capable of most any type of mayhem toward "snitches." Pat Buchanan, Nixon's lap dog speech writer, thinks Deep Throat was "traitorous," the worst type of presidential enemy. No matter that Nixon was a liar, a vindictive bastard and the worst president we have ever had. To Buchanan, you must show loyalty, and screw the consequences.
Perhaps Deep Throat's lovely (and daring) parting gift to us is simple: He actually exists. He is not fabrication or composite. He is one man, a fact not easily proved had he taken his secret to the grave. That in itself, in an era where trust has been shredded beyond recognition, is something to behold.
But I will miss the mystery. Thank you Deep Throat. There may never be another like you.
Deep Throat is - according to Vanity Fair and confirmed by The Washington Post - just an old man living with his daughter in California. He has, like the rest of us who relished every minute of the Watergate Scandal, grown old. He is, we are told, allowed two glasses of wine with his dinner. It is like being told that Superman is really, well, you know, Clark Kent.
What's gone, what Vanity Fair has been taken from us, is one of the greatest kept secrets of our Baby Boomer time, wrested from the grip of the select few who'd vowed to keep it forever. The hiding of Deep Throat's identity took on a larger mythic status than any scoop Deep Throat provided, and we guarded the almost holy belief in Deep Throat.
At least it was to me. Deep Throat was the perfect, nameless god. Deep Throat represented the idea that reporters (and their background sources) could save the world, and that trust was still trust, and truth was still true. Once we had the hope that to bring down an evil Administration, you need only go to the shadows of an obscure parking garage. Now, people go to parking garages to get their cars and evil Administrations continue to rule our lives unpunished. Where's our hope?
Deep Throat is W. Mark Felt, former assistant director of the FBI during the Nixon administration. Who?
What could be more of a letdown than finding out who Deep Throat is? And for crissakes, finding it out in Vanity Fair with Nicole Kidman on the cover? And not really finding it out in Vanity Fair so much as feeling it crash-land across the Internet and the cable news networks, days before the magazine even hits the stands? How awful can it be watching it not resonate among people younger than 30. I doubt that either of my sons care to much about it. And you know what is even worse? Finding out that you yourself don't care that much anymore.
The concept of Deep Throat once set the rules of the New Journalism. You did not stop with "balancing" your story with quotes from "the other side." You kept digging until you had the truth. That's why being in journalism in the 70s was so exciting. Today, hard hitting journalist is digging up whether J. Lo has a new hottie.
It did help that the Great Secret had been given a dirty, porny nickname. That naturally came right from the swagger and irreverence of journalism's then-new era, asserting itself while cracking wise. In your face, Establishment. Up the Revolution!
Journalism schools, which in the 60s barely had enough people to put out a daily student newspaper, were suddenly overcrowded with people who all wanted to find the next Deep Throat. Everyone wanted to be Robert Redford (well, like who didn't!) IBM Selectrics were the writing machine of choice. Pay phones were how we communicated when we weren't at home or in the office. A cluttered desk was a sign of a serious worker. Drab newsrooms were OK. Reporters drank and smoked, and we didn't take crap from anyone.
Today you cannot even get a whiff of what it felt like. Then it was possible to go to a bar and tell a girl that you were a reporter and she was mightily impressed. It was like you too had some of the allure of Deep Throat. You were in the know. And you had secrets. Now she would tell you that she doesn't really ever look at the paper. Or worse, she only looks at it online (at best) or occasionally watches Fox News.
People are over their lust for reporters, but they still want Deep Throat. I know I do, but it's like sending signals in the sky to The Batman who never answers.
Gone is our tidy, narrow definition of evil, of corruption. The gotcha is now a tawdry exercise in minutiae, not a blow against the Establishment, against the Man. "What did he know and when did he know it" puts us to sleep. "Follow the money" is an exercise in Excel spreadsheets, occasionally praised by prize committees, but rarely read.
It turns out being in the dark about Deep Throat was more enthralling than holding it out to the light. Had he lived in this era, Deep Throat might not have lasted long. He'd be blogged to bits. The multitude of Right Wing blogs and e-publications would disprove him with their own Deep Throats. Fox News would pay him to reveal himself after a news cycle or two, and he'd walk away with a big book contract.
Was he a hero? I think so. An Administration who would hire thugs to burglarize their opponent's offices was capable of most any type of mayhem toward "snitches." Pat Buchanan, Nixon's lap dog speech writer, thinks Deep Throat was "traitorous," the worst type of presidential enemy. No matter that Nixon was a liar, a vindictive bastard and the worst president we have ever had. To Buchanan, you must show loyalty, and screw the consequences.
Perhaps Deep Throat's lovely (and daring) parting gift to us is simple: He actually exists. He is not fabrication or composite. He is one man, a fact not easily proved had he taken his secret to the grave. That in itself, in an era where trust has been shredded beyond recognition, is something to behold.
But I will miss the mystery. Thank you Deep Throat. There may never be another like you.
posted by Robert | 8:30 AM
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