An era fades into the mist

What could be more of a letdown than finding out who Deep Throat is? Finding it out in Vanity Fair? 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 hits the stands? Finding out that you don’t care anymore? Watching it not resonate among people younger than 30?

The concept of Deep Throat once set the rules of the town. There was great industry in the clandestine, in whispering. It helped that it had a dirty, porny nickname, which came right from the swagger and irreverence of journalism’s then-new era.

People still want Deep Throat, or something very much like him, and they demand that reporters still go looking for him. It’s like sending signals in the sky to a Batman who never answers. Aggrieved readers beseech reporters and editors to swoop in and shine the beacon of unstoppable truth, always aided by the well-placed, anonymous source.

Gone is a sort of 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. He’d be Drudged, smudged, Romenesko’d. People would disprove him with their own Deep Throats. His identity would be discovered within a news cycle or two, spun around, and he’d be left holding a book contract.

Perhaps Deep Throat’s parting gift to Washington is simple: He exists. He is not fabrication. 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, is something to behold.

LAT-WP