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In praise of whistleblowers, on left and right

By Joe L-E, June 17, 2005 under News

This article first appeared in The Record (Hackensack, NJ) on June 17, 2005.

THE CHEERS OF ELATION were deafening when the legendary Deep Throat finally came out and revealed himself to America after living in the shadows for decades.

The media rejoiced at hearing that the great tale had finally come to an end and that they could commemorate their most powerful, highest-impact story. Mark Felt, the No. 2 man at the FBI, gave the media a reason to celebrate investigative journalism and its role in the resignation of a president.

But whistleblowers have been very prominent in a wide range of issues in the last few years. Following the 2002 corporate scandals that tarnished the Bush administration by association, Time magazine named the three whistleblowers - Sherron Watkins of Enron, Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom and Colleen Rowley of the FBI - as Persons of the Year for their courage. Currently, the media are celebrating the anonymous source that alleged that the Bush administration and Tony Blair’s government exaggerated the threat of Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.

However, I am having trouble remembering how most of the media lauded whistleblowers of the 1990s, those who undid the Clinton administration. Forgive me if my copy got lost in the mail, but I never received a Time Person of the Year issue featuring Linda Tripp, who blew the lid off the obstruction of justice by President Clinton and his staff in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit.

Furthermore, I also missed the articles lauding the “heroes” of Whitewater, the Juanita Broderick rape accusation, Travelgate, Chinagate and all of the others.

Gary Aldrich, an FBI agent at the White House, wrote “Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House,” but was not ever given Felt-like accolades for his insider account of the president of the United States.

All these whistleblowers were more courageous than Felt. They actually came forward in the flesh, exposing themselves and their families to the media for scrutiny.

The mainstream media do not so much care about the issue being exposed, but rather by whom or what the revelations may damage. We will never know if Colleen Rowley or the other Persons of the Year had some obscure inaccuracy on a bureaucratic form. The media made sure we knew about a similar lapse by Linda Tripp in a 1987 job application.

Tripp was investigated and even indicted for tapping her phone, essential in pointing to Clinton’s culpability in the Paula Jones civil suit. If this was acceptable to the American justice system, then Felt ought to be charged with compromising the FBI in its investigation of Watergate.

Tripp’s motives were questioned. She was dismissed as a member of the “vast right-wing conspiracy” out to get Clinton. But the motives of Felt, passed over by Nixon to become FBI director, were far more malicious than Tripp’s.

Tripp has never been appreciated for helping get justice for Paula Jones by revealing that there was a concerted effort to obstruct justice in the Monica Lewinsky affair. Had she found a common practice of coverup and secrecy? We’ll never know.

What person in his or her right mind would come forward against the Clintons while the mainstream press continued to vilify the first whistleblower by bringing up her personal history and criticizing her every move - her looks ridiculed, her motives in wanting to write a tell-all book assailed?

Meanwhile, Cynthia Cooper gets thousands of dollars per lecture, and Sherron Watkins has co-authored a book. Felt’s side of the story, “All the President’s Men,” has already made it to a Hollywood screen.

Real journalists should treasure whistleblowers because they are the ones who can make a great story and expose scandal and corruption in government, business and other institutions in society. They are the “in” that reporters love to hear from, because they can get into places that no one in the media can.

But the labeling of Felt as a hero and Tripp as a disgrace shows that this ideal is not at the heart of the media enterprise. It rewards the truth speakers only when it fits an agenda, most often a liberal agenda.

There must be consistency and honesty in the media if journalists expect to get a tap on the shoulder from the next Deep Throat. If not, then media are failing the people, and that certainly calls for an investigation.

Joseph Luppino-Esposito, a Wyckoff resident, is assistant editor-in-chief of The Virginia Informer, a student publication of The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., at which he is an undergraduate.

Topics: Bill Clinton, enron, FBI, Joe L-E published, Monica Lewinsky, Richard Nixon, whistleblowers, WorldCom