Rest in Peace Joseph Trius

Until Watergate and "Deep Throat," the use of the anonymous source was invoked rarely, and then mostly by gossip columnists and police beat reporters. After Watergate and, even more so, after the movie "All the President's Men," every editor wanted to be Ben Bradlee/Jason Robards, and every reporter wanted to be Bob Woodward/Robert Redford. It changed the public image of newspaper reporters from the scandal mongers of "The Front Page" to government-toppling superheros and newsprint rock stars.

(No one I knew wanted to be Carl Bernstein/Dustin Hoffman. The actor who played "Ratso Rizzo" in "Midnight Cowboy" seemed appropriate for the Bernstein role -- two peas in a pod so to speak. Or maybe it was because Bernstein was "Ringo" to Woodward's "Paul McCartney" -- both Beatles, but that's where the similarities ended. One had talent; the other had bad teeth and whose only claim to fame was a lot of rings. And who wants to fantasize about being a drummer when you can fantasize about singing lead and getting all the girls? Me, I fantasized of being Carl Kolchak. He was an imperfect slob in cheap suits, an empty wallet and no permanent relationships who thumbed his nose at authorities and tended to speak plainly, thinking he was being helpful, and really irritate people doing so. I could relate.)

Even worse, the movie of the Watergate cover-up made every person with a newstip think of themselves as "Deep Throat" aka W. Mark Felt/Hal Holbrook. No one wanted to go on record with their comments, no matter how mundane the story, and those who did go on record were inconsequential Chamber of Commerce publicists paid to make mundane comments and bore the daylights out of readers with well-worn cliches.

I was working on a small newspaper in northern Vermont early in my journalism career. When you're a reporter for a small town newspaper, you write about small town events. And many small events are big news in a small town.

The only credit card I had then was a Shell Oil credit card so I always bought my fuel from the local Shell gas station. About three months after I moved to Vermont Shell notified all its dealers that it was pulling out of providing fuel to stations in northern New England. The station owner where I bought my fuel told me he wouldn't be accepting my credit card anymore, and that's how I found out about Shell's plans to leave northern New England. When I asked the station owner if he'd still be in business, he said yes, that they were becoming an independent, with an independent name, but would be buying fuel from British Petroleum/BP. He knew I was a reporter and said he didn't want his name mentioned as the source of the information when I wrote the article.

I called Shell and confirmed the information, but only that station owner knew who he would be buying fuel from when Shell stopped providing it to him, and what the name of his new fuel station would be.

That's but one incident. There were countless times I was tasked to cover a mundane event and could get no one to go on record with their information, like the car wash owner who was opening a second car wash but didn't want his name attached to the information. "Call me an anonymous source. Yeah, like Watergate. My wife will laugh when she sees that in print."

My complaint to the editor was that if they don't go on the record, don't give them the publicity they want. But he was adamant about getting the news in the paper, even it meant that information about a filling station using BP gas and the opening of a new car wash came from anonymous sources everyone knew.

My late friend Bill D., a longtime reporter for the Boston Herald who lost his job after Rupert Murdoch broke a strike at the paper, told me of an amazing solution to the sourcing problem and adamant editors.

Bill had spent 13 years in an Army airborne STRAC unit, early Special Forces, but was cashiered from the service after breaking his back in a Jeep rollover accident that killed the fellow soldiers riding in the same vehicle. After leaving the Army Bill got a job on the police beat for the Boston Herald. Bill gained some notoriety as a police beat reporter during the "Boston Strangler" case by getting tips from beat cops who, upon discovering a new victim of the Strangler, would call Bill before they called the station.

Long before the "Boston Strangler" case, however, Bill's job was to file reports on criminal activity for the newspaper. Everything went fine until a new editor was hired who demanded Bill name suspects when news reports of violent crimes from the police blotter were filed. Bill would ask the desk sergeant who committed the crimes, and the desk sergeant invariably would say in his South Boston brogue "T'ree yous" were seen fleeing the crime scene. It didn't matter what crime it was, the answer from the desk sergeant was always "T'ree yous," Bill explained, meaning "three youths" were spotted.

"T'ree yous" did not sit well with his editor. Bill told me the editor wanted names. "And don't come back without a name!" the editor screamed at Bill. When I knew Bill, he had been sober for many years. Back then, when he was just starting his career at the Boston Herald, he said, he wasn't. He drank while in the Army and was drunk while riding as a passenger in that Jeep, which he says probably saved his life because he was so loose. And he could be creative when necessary to cover his tracks. Thus was born a person who never lived, the degenerate criminal mastermind "Joseph Trius" -- whose last name coincidentally sounded exactly like "T'ree yous."

Joseph Trius started being named in crimes of all sorts, not only by Bill, but by other reporters whose editors demanded the names of suspects in crimes that, as yet, had none. After awhile, Bill told me, there were letters to the newspaper demanding that the police and mayor catch Joseph Trius and prevent him from continuing his crime spree.

When the mayor called the police captain and they both called the editors of the Boston Herald wanting more information on Joseph Trius, Bill knew the net was closing on his ploy. A friend at the coroner's office had a John Doe, an unidentified body, mangled and disfigured in a horrible accident, and that body became Joseph Trius. The police captain and mayor couldn't prove it was Joseph Trius, and they couldn't prove it wasn't. And all they really wanted, Bill told me, was for the crime spree by Joseph Trius to end so they'd stop looking so bad in the newspapers. And Joseph Trius' obituary was written.

I never checked this story for facts. It's, as they say, just too good to check. Bill's passed on and he's the one who'd know. It might just be a good yarn from an old newshound and it might be the truth.

Knowing Bill, I tend to believe that Joseph Trius existed in the pages of the Boston Herald at one point. Maybe not the portion with coroner; that seems a bit far-fetched. But this story brings a chuckle to me when I think of it, and reminds of the elfish, mischievous look Bill often had recounting war stories of newsrooms long past. He'd bemoan the pink-collarization of the newsroom and the growing number of WoodStein-wannabes in the newspaper business as much as Kathleen Parker laments the fact that "Deep Throat" didn't turn out to be a woman.

As I wrote, the worst result of Watergate and "Deep Throat" was the growing prevalence of the anonymous source in news reports. People could snipe from the shadows without ever showing the necessary moral courage and backbone to stand publicly behind their accusations.

Was the situation in Washington, D.C. in the 1970s so bad that even the second highest man at the Federal Bureau of Investigation couldn't find justice without taking his information anonymously to the press? If the political situation were that bad, we would have been months away from a fascist dictatorship, which we weren't. So W. Mark Felt's political motives and lack of moral courage have to be examined. He could have been a hero if he, like fired Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox, stood in the glare of the public eye and made his accusations. But he didn't. He sniped from the shadows like a mole at work for a foreign power. Felt kept his own job but succeeded in helping unseat the man who robbed him of a promotion to J. Edgar Hoover's job. He comes off as the ultimate disgruntled employee.

Watergate made Bob Woodward famous, and the continuing cache of his keeping the confidence and identity of "Deep Throat" helped make him rich. He is modern journalism's only rock star. Carl Bernstein didn't have that relationship with Felt or the public persona of the telegenic Woodward and thus has foundered, a sidelines "Ringo" to Woodward's "McCartney."

Mark Felt didn't become rich, so it's not really surprising if you believe in the Deep Throat character's advice to "follow the money" that Vanity Fair and a lawyer for Felt's family scooped Woodward and the Washington Post by being the first to officially unmask the man behind the "Deep Throat" tips that helped tumble the Nixon presidency. It's apparent the Felts have viewed the wealth and fame Woodward gained primarily through a mentor relationship with Mark Felt and sought travel accomodations on their own gravy train.

It seems apparent, also, that Woodward was bright enough not to rub the Felts' noses in his wealth and fame. One account reports Woodward ensured his limousine parked 10 blocks away from Felt's residence when Woodward went visiting.

Woodward was surprised to hear of the Vanity Fair report and waited a full day before confirming Felt as his source known as "Deep Throat." Were the unmasking coordinated, Woodward would've at least been a co-author of the Vanity Fair article. So this tells you that Woodward now has a competitor for any future books on "Deep Throat" and the Watergate investigation. It's doubtful Woodward paid any money to the Felts though they may have asked. Felt is now 91 and has suffered from at least one stroke; caring for a 91 year old stroke victim is expensive, even if that victim had held the #2 spot in the FBI.

Time has shown us all that former President Richard Nixon, while flawed, performed some valuable services for this nation. And it has now shown us that the wings of the "angels" that brought down his administration were irreparably tarnished as well. The crusading journalism was not altruistic but another example of a D.C. area sniper. It reminds me of that old saw: Those who enjoy sausage and respect the law should never watch either being made.

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I have updated my post "Who's spinning you and why?" with hyperlinks to the transcripts of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers' remarks to the annual convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the follow-up question and answer session.

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I'd like to apologize for not posting as often as I had been. This is my busy season, and when I have a few, non-driving and waking moments, it's usually way too hot to write, which is creativity stifling to me. It's not that I'm without things to say; I'm just too pooped to put them together on the ether and share them. I don't get paid for this punditry and the puppies have to eat. I'll try to post more often, but it may be a flurry and then a dearth of opinion. Thanks for your understanding.

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Porn spam Easter egg of the day:

"Being married means I can [break wind] and eat ice cream in bed." -- Brad Pitt, before his recent separation from wife Jennifer Aniston. NOW we know why they split.