Deep Who?

So Deep Throat was W. Mark Felt after all? That's interesting to know after all these years, but by now, it's not much more than a historical footnote. A 20-inch story, tops.

The Seattle Times, though, played it like the Second Coming this morning: lead headline and two stories on the front page; a full page of analysis, complete with an obligatory Watergate timeline, on page 3; and two and a half more pages of navel-gazing inside. Call it four pages of newsprint, all told. I lament the trees that died in vain.

I mean, who cares about Watergate, let alone, Deep Throat, today? Except for fueling a generation of journalistic hubris, it had no lasting political impact. My college-age sons might dimly remember a mention of "Watergate" in some American history class, but if they even bothered to look at today's paper, I'm sure they would have been as baffled by the flood-the-zone coverage as everyone else under the age of 50.

And editors wonder why their readers are disappearing...