Critics view the series' claims as inaccurate or overstated, while supporters point to the results of a later CIA investigation as vindicating the series. [59], The first volume of the report found no evidence that "any past or present employee of CIA, or anyone acting on behalf of CIA, had any direct or indirect dealing" with Ross, Blandn, or Meneses or that any of the other figures mentioned in "Dark Alliance" were ever employed by or associated with or contacted by the agency. Regarding issues raised in the series's shorter sidebar stories, it found that some in the government were "not eager" to have DEA agent Celerino Castillo "openly probe" activities at Ilopango Airport in El Salvador, where covert operations in support of the Contras were undertaken, and that the CIA had indeed intervened in a case involving smuggler Julio Zavala. "[64] Webb's longest response to the controversy was in "The Mighty Wurlitzer Plays On," a chapter he contributed to an anthology of press criticism: .mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, If we had met five years ago, you wouldn't have found a more staunch defender of the newspaper industry than me And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. "[82], Kill the Messenger (2014) is based on Webb's book Dark Alliance and Nick Schou's biography of Webb. His death was especially traumatic to the family since - as the coroner said - it could not be established whether he died instantly, or bled to death. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. reports. "You sound very scared," Moreira remarks. Gary Webb Obituary (1944 - 2022) - Portland, OR - The Oregonian Gary Webb and 'Kill the Messenger': Reporter played by - cleveland Special Reports - Cocaine, Conspiracy Theories And The Cia In - PBS The complete lack of desire to ask the difficult questions makes me want to scream. American Journalism Review - Archives Snowfall is an American crime drama television series set in Los Angeles in 1983. Army. By Sam Stanton Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 15, 2004. . In August of 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb broke the biggest story of his life. "The second bullet," adds Bell, who has worked for more than 20 years in the area of respiratory therapy, "struck his carotid artery. Gary Webb - Spartacus Educational Webb followed up Baca's leads at the California State Library, examining Congressional records and FBI reports. Webb's reports prompted three official investigations, including one by the CIA itself which - astonishingly for an organisation rarely praised for its transparency - confirmed the substance of his findings (published at length in Webb's 1998 book, also entitled Dark Alliance). I first heard about Webb eight years ago, I tell Bell, from the Paris-based journalist Paul Moreira. He was born June 18, 1943, in Appleton, son of the late Wilford and Helen (Hauskey) Webb. * The agency's response was to try to prevent him from getting his doctorate, then block his advancement in the academic world. [35] The second article, by McManus, was the longest of the series and dealt with the role of the Contras in the drug trade and CIA knowledge of drug activities by the Contras. "[2], Ceppos noted that Webb did not agree with these conclusions. border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd; By the late spring of 1996, Webb was ready to publish. "Gary was 18 and I was 16 when we first met and started dating in Indianapolis," said Sue Stokes. Blandn and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. "Everyone got out and left the person who had made the noise - issued the report - alone. [16] As part of The Mercury News team that covered the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, Webb and his colleague Pete Carey wrote a story examining the causes of the collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct. During and immediately after the controversy over "Dark Alliance," Webb's earlier writing was examined closely. Webb's ex wife, Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide. One instalment of the LA Times's 18,000-word rebuttal of Webb's piece, published in October 1996, sought to minimise the importance of his key witness, Ricky Ross. "Although Ross had become a millionaire by 1984," Katz now wrote, "the market was so huge by then that even a dealer of his stature could seem dwarfed How the crack epidemic reached that extreme, on some level," he continues, "had nothing to do with Ross". With Baca's encouragement, he started to investigate a large-scale Nicaraguan cocaine dealer named Oscar Danilo Blandn. In 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb was found dead from an apparent suicide, as Democracy Now! Shortly before I left for Sacramento, Moreira, who knew Webb, had shown me unbroadcast footage which shows the French reporter making a phone call to a media commentator in the US, asking him about Webb's death. He was born at Emmanuel Hospital in. On one road trip, in 2001, he came off the motorcycle and split his helmet open. His assignments included investigating racial profiling by the California Highway Patrol and charges that the Oracle Corporation had received a no-bid contract award of $95 million in 2001. A jury awarded the plaintiffs over 13 million dollars and the case was later settled. He leaves behind the love of his life and adoring wife of 41 years, Anne Michelle Phillips. [63]Dark Alliance was a 1998 Pen/Newman's Own First Amendment Award Finalist, 1998 San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, 1999 Bay Area Book Reviewers Award Finalist, and 1999 Firecracker Alternative Booksellers Award Winner in the Politics category. It was also posted on The Mercury News website with additional information, including documents cited in the series and audio recordings of people quoted in the articles. "He rang me up that day. After the series's publication, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. Gary Numan's superfan wife had 'body lift' and exploding breasts She acted opposite Dirk Bogarde in the groundbreaking film Victim (Basil Dearden, 1961), as the unsuspecting wife of a barrister who is a closet homosexual. Emma Lee Webb. He made that very clear. When Ross discovered the market for crack in Los Angeles, he began buying cocaine from Blandn. The whole business, I suggested to Blum, has echoes of a classic Alfred Hitchcock plot. padding-left: 10px!important; If the antagonism of competing publications was predictable, what happened to Webb within his own newspaper was not. The feeling was that with other news outlets calling for Webb's head, the paper's credibility depended on their joining in on the attacks. Gary Webb Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth, Family But the report was correct. When removal men arrived, on the morning of 10 December 2004, they found a sign on his front door, which read: ''Please do not enter. Her husband began his career on The Kentucky Post, and rapidly proved himself to be the sort of character who can be a secretive agency's worst nightmare: a full-blooded provocateur who liked to put the hours in at the library. His wife is Sue Webb (m. 1979-2000) Gary Webb Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. The consensus, insofar as one exists, is that he probably overstated both the amount of drug money made by Ross and Blandn, and the percentage of those profits diverted to the Contras. His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner's office. Gary Webb famously died of two gun shot wounds to the head and his death that was ruled a suicide, is the common sense notion that this was clearly assassination true? After introducing the three, the first article discussed primarily Blandn and Meneses, and their relationship with the Contras and the CIA. The room is decorated with his trophies: a Pulitzer prize hangs next to his HL Mencken award; also on the wall is a framed advertisement for The Kentucky Post. Parry, the first reporter to write about the US authorities' drug-running on behalf of the Contras, had survived a campaign by the White House to discredit first his story, then his reputation. Gary Webb Was Right | HuffPost Latest News ", Many of these are in the series archive at. Gary Webb's "Approach Split" in the atrium of 20 Triton Street London. "It was like someone had made a terrible noise, or a terrible smell, in a small room," recalls Jonathan Winer, Kerry's chief senate staff investigator . "It says the CIA helped introduce poison into our children. Then, in August the same year, the first of three instalments of "Dark Alliance" appeared. The story they printed was just awful. [6], Webb first began writing for the student newspaper at his college in Indianapolis. Gary's documentation is awesome and his work ethic is unbelievable. If you work through friendly reporters on major newspapers, it comes off as The New York Times saying it and not a mouthpiece of the CIA. "Ross," his report went on, dealt "on a scale never before conceived," with "a staggering turnover" of "50 to 100 kilos of cocaine a day". Five years ago, a tragedy occurred in American journalism: Investigative reporter Gary Webb - who had been ostracized by his own colleagues for forcing a spotlight back onto an ugly government scandal they wanted to ignore - was driven to commit suicide. He also defended the series in interviews with all three papers. and Drugs Has a Life of Its Own", "Pivotal Figures of Newspaper Series May Be Only Bit Players", "Tracking the Genesis of the Crack Trade", "Examining Charges of CIA Role in Crack Sales", "History Fuels Outrage Over Crack Allegations", "Ex-L.A. Times Writer Apologizes for "Tawdry" Attacks", "Mercury News Executive Editor Jerry Ceppos' Letter to the Washington Post", "Washington Post response to Mercury News Executive Editor Jerry Ceppos", "Despite critics, a good story Crack and the contras", "CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy: Epilogue", "CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy: Conclusions", United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "Are You Sure You Want to Ruin Your Career? [65], Within "The Mighty Wurlitzer Plays On" essay Webb stated he believed there was an active "collusion between the press and the powerful" to report freely on inconsequential matters, "but when it comes to the real down and dirty stuff We begin to see the limits of our freedoms". [29] Waters urged the CIA, the Department of Justice, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate. The story offered no evidence to support such sweeping conclusions, a fatal error that would ultimately destroy Webb, if not his editors. The three articles in the series were written by four reporters: Jesse Katz, Doyle McManus, John Mitchell and Sam Fulwood. He recently told the American Journalism Review (whose scrupulously researched piece, by Susan Paterno, is the only serious documentation of the Webb case I could find anywhere in the orthodox American media) that Webb's critics in rival newspapers, "quoted these CIA guys - who had a tremendous amount to hide - as though they were telling the truth. Dark Alliance: Gary Webb, Christian Rummel: 9781522694397: Amazon.com Eighteen Years Ago Today, Journalist Gary Webb Was Murdered After Save 50% with early-bird passes. [20] The website artwork showed the silhouette of a man smoking a crack pipe superimposed over the CIA seal. It noted that Blandn and Meneses claimed to have donated money to Contra sympathizers in Los Angeles, but found no information to confirm that it was true or that the agency had heard of it. There were no offers. [40] Ceppos also asked reporter Pete Carey to write a critique of the series for publication in The Mercury News, and had the controversial website artwork changed. He was found dead on Friday morning in what the police said was an apparent suicide. [72] A New York Times profile of Webb in June 1997 noted that two of his series written for the Cleveland Plain Dealer had resulted in lawsuits that the paper had settled. After Webb's death, a collection of his stories from before and after the "Dark Alliance" series was published. He said: 'No. One article, dealing mostly with the response of the Los Angeles Black community to the stories, described the series's evidence as "thin". "They tried to make us look like crazies," says Blum. But you say - dear God. Voices: The Gary Webb saga still has lessons today Gary Webb, friends say, was a far more combative character than either the Mercury News's executive editor Ceppos or page editor Garcia. "That's right," says Blum. His victory in the event last year gave him . But they underestimated the paradigm shifting power of the internet, and the intelligence of Webb, who not only listed the explosive story online . But his central thesis - that the CIA, having participated in narcotics trafficking in central America, had, at best, turned a blind eye to the activities of drug dealers in LA - has never been in question. I'm glad that I didn't dissuade him, because it was important to get the truth out but for Gary Webb, there was a very high price to pay." Webb resigned from The Mercury News in December 1997. Gary Webb's income source is mostly from being a successful . How Kill the Messenger Will Vindicate Investigative Journalist Gary Webb
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