Veteran FBI man W. Mark Felt wrestled with whether he was doing right by secretly helping reporters unearth Watergate crimes as "Deep Throat," the Washington Post reporters he guided said Thursday. Three decades later, his motives remain fuzzy even to them.

Deep Throat, the secret source whose insider guidance was vital to The Washington Post's groundbreaking coverage of the Watergate scandal, was a pillar of the FBI named W. Mark Felt, The Post confirmed yesterday.

Home improvement chain Lowe's Cos. has narrowed its list of contenders vying for its $300 million creative and media planning and buying account, according to an executive familiar with the matter.

Cutting a circuitous route through America, ESPN's "SportsCenter" will visit 50 states in 50 days this summer, kicking off at a Yankees-Red Sox game at Boston's Fenway Park on July 17. Anheuser-Busch and Coca-Cola have signed on as sponsors of "SportsCenter Across America," as it's been dubbed, with packages that include 30-second units and branding within "SportsCenter" plus advertising on other ESPN programming and platforms. The packages were shopped at $2.3 million to $2.5 million, a source said, with each sponsor attached to one of the three live "SportsCenter" time slots ? 6 p.m., 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. ET. …

ESPN is contemplating a future without National Hockey League coverage, three days after it refused to exercise an option to pay $60 million to carry the 2005-6 season.

It's correct to be politically incorrect again, at least for marketers trying to sell products to young men.

Country music wasn't working for radio station 95.7 FM in San Francisco, so earlier this month, it dumped the format in favor of something new and a little bit harder to hang a name on. Call it "whatever" radio, because the programming philosophy is to play hits from the 1970s, '80s and "whatever we feel like." It's part of the latest wave to hit broadcasting in the era of the iPod.