Antonia Zerbisias Watergate and today's media

[Parrcrow]

Watergate coup was harmful for media
Right wing goaded to control opinion


ANTONIA ZERBISIAS
All week, the U.S. media have been consumed with Deep Throat.

His unmasking is the final chapter in the greatest journalistic coup of our time, one that changed not only history but journalism.

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As for the think-tanks, well, if you've ever wondered why you see so many TV pundits from right-wing organizations such as the Heritage Foundation or American Enterprise Institute, it's because these outfits get their guys into TV studios before less biased academics can even return calls.

Assuming they get any calls.

Harried news-channel bookers have long hours to fill and short deadlines to fill them in. It's easy for them to choose the path of least resistance through their Rolodexes — and the think-tanks are always responsive.

That said, during the past week, just about every angle of Watergate has been covered, from how Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein kept their informant's identity a secret for 33 years, to the media's reliance on unnamed sources (often just a thinly disguised way to bash the media) to whether Deep Throat, now known to be former senior FBI official W. Mark Felt, received money for his outing.

The media also trotted out some villains of the piece, guys such as G. Gordon Liddy and Charles Colson, who did time for their roles in the Republican-sponsored burglary of the Democratic Party offices in the Watergate Hotel and subsequent cover-up. They were asked to discuss whether Felt was a traitor or a hero. Trouble was, they were never identified as interested parties, that Liddy was sentenced to 20 years and Colson served seven months.

link
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1118095836257&call_page=TS_Entertainment&call_pageid=968867495754&call_pagepath=A&E/News&pubid=968163964505&StarSource=email