Show Him the Money
By JOHN TIERNEY
The New York Times
June 4, 2005
I hope Mark Felt and his family get the big payoff they want, but they've already hurt their chances by ignoring his famous advice as Deep Throat. They didn't follow the money.
They didn't appreciate how seriously we journalists take our ethical standards. We are bound by the sacred vow we make to our sources: if the information you give us turns out to be profitable, we will keep the money.
Mr. Felt's family tried profiting from his revelation, but the news cartel held firm. People and Vanity Fair both rejected the family's overtures and held to their policy of not paying sources for news.
The best their lawyer could manage for disclosing the greatest secret in journalism was a fee from Vanity Fair for writing the article. He got about $10,000, which is less than what the magazine has paid for articles in which movie stars disclose they have a major motion picture about to open in a theater near you.
The Felts' mistake, of course, was hawking the secret directly instead of persevering with the genteel approach used by celebrities and former presidents: laundering the news through a book publisher. You don't actually have to write the book yourself, but once your name is on the cover, you've joined the literary priesthood and are pure enough to accept cash offerings.
As a mere source, though, you cannot be trusted with money, at least not according to the keepers of journalistic ethics in America. They say the money would taint the media's image, inspire lies from mercenary sources and maybe even corrupt journalists. An editor once told me that if he bought an article, he feared he would overplay it to justify the expense.
But editors are already tempted to overplay some stories simply because of the resources - staff time, travel expenses - expended on them. And sources already tell lies and try to create news without demanding any upfront payment.
Journalists are supposed to have the judgment to deal with these problems, and money could help them do their job better. Money would give them more leverage than they have now over their sources, because they could withhold some of the payment until the story comes out and is proven correct. They would have access to more sources than the ones they so often rely on now: people peddling stories to further a political or personal agenda.
If People magazine hadn't been bound by the taboo against checkbook journalism, it could have exposed Deep Throat on its cover this week. Instead it gave its readers an exclusive story on Britney's craving for pickles and ice cream, and the singer got publicity that's probably worth more than what the Felts would have collected in cash.
The taboo might make long-term economic sense for newspapers and magazines because it spares them from taking part in expensive bidding wars, but it probably has more to do with class than money. In Britain, the tabloids pay freely for stories, but the highbrow papers insist they don't (while accusing their rivals of violating the code).
When American journalists talk about the "taint" of paying sources, they remind me of lawyers who once fought fiercely and unsuccessfully to preserve their self-imposed ban on advertising. They considered themselves professionals above such commerce - "sheer shysterism," in the words of former Chief Justice Warren Burger.
But while journalists disdain haggling for information, a lot of nonjournalists share the sentiments of Mr. Felt's daughter, Joan. "Bob Woodward's gonna get all the glory for this," she said, "but we could make at least enough money to pay some bills, like the debt I've run up for the kids' education."
Without her father's actions, Richard Nixon might well have stayed in office and the University of Texas library would never have paid $5 million for the papers of Mr. Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Even if they'd brought down the president without him, "All the President's Men" would never have sold so many copies and movie tickets without Mr. Felt's dramatic touches - the coded signals he devised, the secret meetings in the parking garage.
Now the reporters are rushing out another book, and Mr. Felt is still not supposed to get any money from it. He deserves a cut, not only for what he did for them but for what they and their editor did to him. He risked his career to expose corruption in the White House, and they ensured that his name will be forever linked in the annals of history with a 1970's porn flick. They owe him. |
