Follow the Money Behind the Deep Throat Scoop

By Ryan Basen
June 6, 2005 11:48 AM

Jay Fitzgerald was walking by a Boston bookstore last week when he got an idea for his next story.

 

As the Boston Herald business reporter stopped to peer inside the store, he noticed that the book, All the President's Men, was being heavily showcased. Fitzgerald then returned to The Herald newsroom, talked to his editor and contributed a business angle to the biggest story of the week -- the disclosure of Deep Throat's identity.

 

Fitzgerald's piece, "Deep Throat, Deep Pockets: Cashing in on Watergate secret," was one of many business stories published in the days immediately following last week's Deep Throat scoop.

 

Most of those stories focused on the financial windfalls that "Deep Throat" (W. Mark Felt) and Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward stand to make with books and movies about Felt's role in the Watergate scandal. The Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and a few other large media outlets published pieces following that angle.

 

Their reporters and editors interviewed publishing officials and agents, journalism school directors, history professors and store owners; and scanned the sales lists at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

 

They also attempted to get in touch with Felt and his family, and sought to find out how much money a book deal could generate and whether he would cooperate on a book with Woodward. They also turned their attention to Woodward's upcoming book -- what it would be about and when it would be released.

 

The results are business pieces that stand out from the hundreds of straight news and analysis pieces that comprise most of the media's Deep Throat coverage -- pieces that earn the praise of Chris Roush, a business journalism professor at the University of North Carolina.

 

"It's showing readers an angle that they may not have ever thought about," Roush says. "I don't think it's that important [on the Deep Throat coverage scale], but I do think it's something that 20 to 30 years ago, probably was a story that would not have been written."

 

Fitzgerald's piece differed because of its local business take. He detailed the boon in local sales of All the President's Men in both its book and movie forms, interviewing a Boston video and book store manager.

 

"It was fun" adding to the Deep Throat coverage, says Fitzgerald, a general assignment economics reporter. "It's a topic everyone talks about."

 

Still, Roush notices one glaring omission. An enterprising reporter should find out how much The Post stands to make off of this story, he says.

 

"They're the ones who this story is about," Roush says. "Are people buying more issues of The Post on newsstands just to read about Deep Throat?"

 

That line of thinking follows Roush's assertion that if there is money involved in a story, there is a business angle to it.

 

Fitzgerald agrees. He says the majority of the stories he writes are strictly local business news pieces, but about one-quarter are national stories for which he finds a local business angle.

 

"There's a business story that can be found anywhere," he says.   

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Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism