The man who led the student probe into the identity of Deep Throat is more polite scientist than swaggering interrogator. He is the classic documents reporter, say those who know Bill Gaines — which made the four-year project at the University of Illinois a classic Gaines investigation. It was an all paper trail, a clue-by-clue journey that led the group on Tuesday to name Fred Fielding, deputy counsel to former President Nixon, as the chief suspect. ‘‘You would never in a million years think he was an investigative reporter,’’ said Joel Kaplan, chairman of the newspaper department at Syracuse University’s journalism school, who worked with Gaines at the Chicago Tribune. ‘‘You wouldn’t even know he was there. He a dumb old guy — but he’s brilliant.’’ Gaines, 69, worked for 25 years as an investigative reporter at the Tribune, where he won two Pulitzers and was a finalist twice. He is the author of Investigative Reporting for Print and Broadcast —a college textbook that has been adopted by more than 60 universities. He now teaches investigative reporting at the University of Illinois, where he was awarded the Knight Chair in 2001. The Deep Throat project has stirred a debate in journalism circles about the ethics of an effort to reveal another journalist’s source. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, The Washington Post reporters who uncovered the Watergate scandal, have not revealed the identity of the nation’s most famous anonymous source.The identities of sources, including Deep Throat, will be kept secret until after the sources die. Though he was not available for comment, Gaines has posted his response on the project’s website, deepthroatuncovered.com: ‘‘I do not believe we have done anything unethical. A reporter’s source is confidential and should never be revealed, but Woodward and Bernstein have broken that rule by making their source a movie character, giving him a name and clues to his personality.’’ (LAT-WP)
