Will an Alabama version of "Deep Throat," the world's most famous anonymous source, bring down Governor Robert Bentley and Rebekah Caldwell Mason?

Mark Felt, who later was revealed as "Deep Throat,"
the anonymous source who broke open
the Watergate scandal.
(From theguardian.com)

The story of an extramarital affair between Alabama Governor Robert Bentley and aide Rebekah Caldwell Mason received national coverage this week, portrayed mainly as a tale of sex, lust, betrayal, deception, greed, and possible criminality. It also, however, is a story of journalism--and much of the reporting on that angle has been botched. In the process, one of the nation's most fabled newspapers apparently forgot its own history--and reporting techniques--that helped uncover perhaps the most notorious political scandal in American history.

National reporters generally got it wrong about who broke the Bentley/Mason story. Credit tended to go to al.com and columnist John Archibald, who discussed the story on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show. Maddow even made a comment that the story provided an example of why communities should support their local newspapers, many of which are on life support.

As much as we like Rachel Maddow--and we like her a lot--she got it wrong. Yes, al.com deserves credit for breaking comments from former ALEA chief Spencer Collier about his knowledge of the affair--and for bringing the audio recording, which revealed Bentley as a creepy phony, to public light.

But al.com did not break the story. Legal Schnauzer, this blog, broke the story on August 31, 2015. We not only broke the story about the affair, but we provided insight into how the affair had turned the Bentley administration into a dysfunctional mess, which might be the most important angle going forward. (More on all of this in upcoming posts.)

For months, al.com would not even mention the word "affair" in its coverage. And it's likely, given the substantial blow back we received, the story never would have reached the light of day if a one-man blog, which happens to have extremely knowledgeable and reliable sources, had not broken it.

Which takes us to The Washington Post. Yes, one of the most powerful entities in journalism put the Bentley/Mason story on a national stage. But it gave zero credit to the blog that actually broke the story roughly seven months ago. In fact, it gave pretty much a backhanded slap to the Web press in general--and, get this, it's all because our original story was based on anonymous sources.

Yep, here is how WaPo reporter Amber Phillips put it:

Here's the story: On Tuesday, the two-term governor fired the state's top cop. That same day, the now-fired top cop told AL.com that Bentley had been having an affair with one of his top advisers. And he said he could prove it.

The governor has denied affair rumors in the past, calling them "ridiculous. . . . "
Bentley hasn't been able to shake that over the past year, whether in unsubstantiated blogs or in the halls of Alabama's capitol, there has been a rumor swirling he was having an affair with his chief adviser, Rebekah Caldwell Mason. (Mason is married, but Bentley's 50-year marriage officially ended this fall, an abrupt ending that Bentley has said shocked him.)

So you have The Washington Post taking shots at "unsubstantiated blogs" (primarily this one, we presume), and it's apparently because the story broke via anonymous sources.

According to her LinkedIn page, Ms. Phillips graduated from Texas Christian University in 2008, which suggests she is roughly 30 years old. It sounds like she is a bright young woman and a promising reporter, with quite a bit of international experience. But does she know much of anything about a little political scandal called Watergate--and her newspaper's historic role in breaking it.

Amber Phillips, Washington Post
(From LinkedIn)

Watergate came to light in 1972, long before Ms. Phillips arrived on this earth--so perhaps, to her, it's just a lengthy chapter in a history book. But for those who might have forgotten, reporting on the story revolved around a D.C. insider who went by the code name "Deep Throat." He acquired that name because he wished to remain anonymous, probably because his life would have been in danger if his identity was revealed. (In 2005, "Deep Throat" was revealed as William Mark Felt Sr., who was a deputy director of the FBI at the time Watergate broke. Felt died in 2008.)

How important was "Deep Throat" to famed reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein? This is from the Wikipedia entry on the Watergate scandal:

Chief among the Post's anonymous sources was an individual whom Woodward and Bernstein had nicknamed Deep Throat; 33 years later, in 2005, the informant was identified as William Mark Felt, Sr., deputy director of the FBI during that period of the 1970s, something Woodward later confirmed. Felt met secretly with Woodward several times, telling him of Howard Hunt's involvement with the Watergate break-in, and that the White House staff regarded the stakes in Watergate extremely high. Felt warned Woodward that the FBI wanted to know where he and other reporters were getting their information, as they were uncovering a wider web of crimes than the FBI first disclosed. In one of their last meetings, all of which took place at an underground parking garage somewhere in Rosslyn from the FBI on June 22, 1973, Felt also planted leaks about Watergate to Time magazine, the Washington Daily News and other publications.

Did Post editors--and readers around the country--consider Woodward and Bernstein's work to be "unsubstantiated" because they relied on an anonymous source--one whose code named was inspired by a pornographic film? Of course not. Their work was considered groundbreaking and has been hailed in numerous books and films; they remain probably the most famous reporting team in journalism history--a team that brought down a corrupt president, Richard M. Nixon.

So why would the Post take a slap at a journalist for using anonymous sources--especially one whose reporting now has proven to be right on target? Is it ignorance, arrogance, or a combination of both? It's hard to say.

But history shows that an anonymous source helped bring down a president. Perhaps such a source will bring down Robert Bentley and Alabama's "de facto governor" Rebekah Mason.