His was the story of a man who gains information of wrongdoing, then, attempting to act in the public interest, seeks protection from his superiors, and the forces of law, and does not receive it. Save 50% with early-bird passes. Call 911 for assistance. 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. color:rgb(46,179,178); [31] In their front-page article, reporters Roberto Suro and Walter Pincus wrote that "available information" did not support the series's claims and that "the rise of crack" was "a broad-based phenomenon" driven in numerous places by diverse players. When Webb wrote another story on the raid evidence in early October, it received wide attention in Los Angeles. When Ross discovered the market for crack in Los Angeles, he began buying cocaine from Blandn. The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress. The first one, "The California Story," was issued in a classified version on December 17, 1997, and in an unclassified version on January 29, 1998. [11], In 1983, Webb moved to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where he continued doing investigative work. [7] After transferring to Northern Kentucky, he entered its journalism program and wrote for the school paper, The Northerner. ", In contrast, the series received support from Steve Weinberg, a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. The second volume, "The Contra Story," was issued in a classified version on April 27, 1998, and in an unclassified version on October 8, 1998. One time he called me and he said: 'I have this plan that will benefit us both.' Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. A January 1997 article in American Journalism Review noted that a 1994 series Webb wrote had also been the subject of a Mercury News internal review that criticized Webb's reporting. My wife has kept me grounded for . Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in, Please refresh your browser to be logged in, Extra 20% off selected fashion and sportswear at Very, Up to 20% off & extra perks with Booking.com Genius Membership, $6 off a $50+ order with this AliExpress discount code, 10% off selected orders over 100 - eBay discount code, Compare broadband packages side by side to find the best deal for you, Compare cheap broadband deals from providers with fastest speed in your area, All you need to know about fibre broadband, Best Apple iPhone Deals in the UK March 2023, Compare iPhone contract deals and get the best offer this March, Compare the best mobile phone deals from the top networks and brands. He was a former member of Bethlehem . Ricky Donnell "Freeway Rick" Ross (born January 26, 1960) is an American author and convicted drug trafficker best known for the drug empire he established in Los Angeles, California, in the early to mid 1980s. 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. font-size: 34px; [5], After high school, Webb attended an Indianapolis community college on a scholarship until his family moved to Cincinnati. "People told me that," she says. He concluded, "How did these shortcomings occur? He cites the case of Alfred McCoy, now Professor of South East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin. Shortly before his death, his motorcycle had been stolen (it was recovered by his family after his death). But they underestimated the paradigm shifting power of the internet, and the intelligence of Webb, who not only listed the explosive story online . He was assigned to its Sacramento bureau, where he was allowed to choose most of his own stories. Unfortunately, the railroading of Gary Webb had begun and he was run over. The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department began its own investigation into the "Dark Alliance" claims.[30]. His former wife, her voice lowered to a whisper, explains that Webb missed with the first shot (which exited through his left cheek). Maxine Waters found a govt employee ran the South Central LA drug ring & The DOJ removed that section of the report : r/conspiracy 3 yr. ago Posted by shylock92008 "He thought I was being cowardly. 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. 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. "To get back at his editors?". Can these things possibly be? [4] When Webb's father retired from the Marines, the family settled in a suburb of Indianapolis, where Webb and his brother attended high school. [45], The Post's response came from the paper's ombudsman, Geneva Overholser. That was just the way he was.". The response from the American press took two months to arrive. 4) The series "created impressions that were open to misinterpretation" through "imprecise language and graphics. Webb made his early reputation as a reporter with the Plain Dealer before going on to fame and turmoil at the San Jose Mercury News. With Baca's encouragement, he started to investigate a large-scale Nicaraguan cocaine dealer named Oscar Danilo Blandn. He is from United States. Webb began to shift from cynicism to curiosity. His wife is Sue Webb (m. 1979-2000) Gary Webb Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. And it was ignored by the US media, for all of those reasons. When Webb pressed the Mercury News to allow him to investigate the LA connection further, his own newspaper issued a retraction which earned its editor, Jerry Ceppos, wide praise from rival publications, but effectively disowned Webb, who then suffered the kind of corporate lynching that reporters are usually expected to dispense rather than endure. He then transferred to nearby Northern Kentucky University. E&P Staff. Gary E. Webb, a dedicated husband, dad, pappy, coach, mentor, teacher, supporter, hero, and best friend, was called home by the Lord while surrounded by family. "[25] It also found disparities in the treatment of Black and White traffickers in the justice system, contrasting the treatment of Blandn and Ross after their arrests for drug trafficking. The Los Angeles Times and other major papers published articles suggesting the "Dark Alliance" claims were overstated and, in November 1996, Jerome Ceppos, the executive editor at Mercury News, wrote about being "in the eye of the storm". [52] Webb was allowed to keep working on the story and made one more trip to Nicaragua in March. The series ran from October 2022, 1996, and was researched by a team of 17 reporters. "[72] California Representative Maxine Waters, who was Webb's strongest supporter in Congress after the "Dark Alliance" controversy broke, issued a statement after Webb's death calling him "one of the finest investigative journalists that our country has ever seen. Leen, who covered the cocaine trade for the Miami Herald in the 1980s, rejects the claim that "because the report uncovered an agency mindset of indifference to drug-smuggling allegations", it vindicated Webb's reporting. "I think Kerry learnt a lesson from all this," reporter Robert Parry says. [22], The lede of the first article set out the series' basic claims: "For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency." } 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. Jeremy Renner as Gary Webb How Kill the Messenger Will Vindicate Investigative Journalist Gary Webb Melinda Welsh September 29, 2014 This one has all the ingredients of a dreamed-up Hollywood. "He had six in a short period of time." He also defended the series in interviews with all three papers. Webb's ex-wife, Sue Bell, discounted theories Tuesday that her husband had been murdered, saying the 49-year-old Webb had been distraught for some time over his inability to get . GARY WEBB OBITUARY Gary Frank Webb Sept. 27, 1944 - Oct. 23, 2022 Gary passed away peacefully of complications following cardiovascular surgery. margin-bottom: 20px; The story had little immediate impact. The CIA Inspector-General's report was issued in two volumes. "[79], Writing after Webb's death in 2005, The Nation magazine's former Washington Editor David Corn said that Webb "was on to something but botched part of how he handled it." When I first heard the news, I tell Bell, I was inclined to believe the conspiracy theories that still proliferate on the internet, suggesting that Webb had been assassinated - either by one of the drug dealers he'd met while writing Dark Alliance, or by the intelligence services who were supposed to police them. [28] Maxine Waters, the representative for California's 35th district, which includes South-Central Los Angeles, was also outraged by the articles and became one of Webb's strongest supporters. Garry Webb wrote the 1996 "Dark Alliance" series for the San Jose. "That's right," says Blum. In August of 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb broke the biggest story of his life. At the end of March, Ceppos told Webb that he was going to present the internal review findings in a column. The other article, citing interviews with current and former intelligence and law-enforcement officials, questioned the importance of the drug dealers discussed in the series, both in the crack cocaine trade and in supporting the Nicaraguan Contras' fight against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. [6], Webb first began writing for the student newspaper at his college in Indianapolis. [67], Webb later moved to the State Assembly's Office of Majority Services. "Back then. Webb - whose article had never alleged that the CIA deliberately targeted any ethnic group - became a national celebrity. "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". Webb's then-wife Sue remembers coming home from the shops and finding her. When he told me, I said it sounded crazy. Begun 1996, the divorce and battle over cash of Grammy winner Jimmy Webb age 75, father of six, wed 22 years to Patsy, 64, daughter of late actor Barry Sullivan is getting longer. Gary was born Sept. 4, 1947, to Percy and Pauline (Haas) Webb. As it turned out," she adds, "that was not their intent.". In a three-part series published in the San Jose Mercury News, "Dark Alliance," Webb alleges that not only was the CIA aware cocaine sold in the U.S. during the 1980s was funding the Nicaraguan Contras, they were complicit in its distribution. Famously known by the Family name Gary Stephen Webb, was a great Engineer.He was born on August 31, 1955, in Carmichael, California.Carmichael is a beautiful and populous city located in Carmichael, California United States of America.. Gary Webb Early Life Story, Family Background and Education. "But that," pointed out Blum, who is now a Washington attorney, "in no way - in no way - diminishes the wrongness of what these bastards did. "You do not understand the power of these people," he adds, referring to the US intelligence services. [9], Webb's first major investigative work appeared in 1980, when the Cincinnati Post published "The Coal Connection," a seventeen-part series by Webb and Post reporter Thomas Scheffey. "Gary was given the choice of relocating either to San Jose," says Bell, "or to Cupertino". So, this is not something you really make a career out of, nor would you want to. Do not quote me on anything.". This is why Webb's "Dark Alliance" series is an essential source, a primary text that every journalism student should study. 2) The series's estimate of the money involved was presented as fact instead of as an estimate. [46] Overholser was harshly critical of the series, "reported by a seemingly hotheaded fellow willing to have people leap to conclusions his reporting couldn't back up." He placed his keys and ID cards on the kitchen table, together with a cremation certificate he had purchased for himself. He went into the bedroom, and picked up a .38 that had belonged to his father. Family and friends will gather to celebrate his life of 59 years at 10 a.m. on Thursday, March 7, 2019, at Lamesa Continue Reading Leave a Message, Share a Memory News coverage noted that there were widespread rumors on the Internet at the time that Webb had been killed as retribution for his "Dark Alliance" series, published eight years before. "Looking back," she says, "I think Gary had been obsessed with suicide for some time. At that time, Webb (pictured) was best known for the controversial three-part CIA 1996 expose he wrote the San Jose Mercury News called "Dark Alliance: The Story Behind the . [71] "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. Webb undeniably made mistakes of detail and emphasis in the newspaper version of "Dark Alliance". Webb became a staff reporter for the San Jose Mercury News in 1988. 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. *, 'Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion' is published in the UK by Seven Stories Press, priced 11.99, Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. There has been speculation that he may have met with foul play because he had received two gunshot wounds to the head, The Sacramento Bee reported Wednesday. [21] This artwork proved controversial, and The Mercury News later removed it. Webb's ex wife, Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide. While police were preparing the case against her boyfriend, Baca alleged, officers had disclosed documents which revealed that one of her lover's associates had been working for the Contras. Thank you." Gary Webb's painstaking investigation and the incindiary conclusions he drew from it were based mostly on public records, as detailed in the "notes on sources" section in "Dark Alliance", including: undercover audio tapes, declassified government documents from the CIA, DEA, FBI, L.A. Sheriff's Department, files from the Iran-Contra . Actor Jeremy Renner portrays Webb.[83]. Carey ultimately decided that there were problems with several parts of the story and wrote a draft article incorporating his findings. Gary Stephen Webb (August 31, 1955 December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. Dr. Gary A. Webb is a geriatrician in Marco Island, Florida. An editorial in the Times, while criticizing the series for making "unsubstantiated charges", conceded that it did find "drug-smuggling and dealing by Nicaraguans with at least tentative connections to the Contras" and called for further investigation. She was a native of Minden, LA, but a resident of Crossett for 65 years. With hindsight, Bell says, "the signs were there. Osborn, Barbara Bliss (MarchApril 1998). Gary Webb, (born August 31, 1955, Corona, California, U.S.died December 10, 2004, Carmichael, California), American investigative journalist who wrote a three-part series for the San Jose Mercury News in 1996 on connections between the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the U.S.-backed Contra army seeking to overthrow Nicaragua's leftist After the announcement of federal investigations into the claims made in the series, other newspapers began investigating, and several papers published articles suggesting the series' claims were overstated. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. In May 1997, after an internal review, Ceppos stated that, although the story was right on many important points, there were shortcomings in the writing, editing and production of the series. The reports of the three federal investigations into the claims of "Dark Alliance" were not released until over a year after the series's publication. It was published in 1998 as Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. .article-native-ad strong { As a result, some major US newspapers ignored its findings completely, while others relegated a brief summary to their inside pages. For instance, he published an article on racial profiling in traffic stops in Esquire magazine, in April 1999. Hired by the San Jose Mercury News, Webb contributed to the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. And when he got something in his head, he was determined to do it. ", The report called several of its findings "troubling." Jeff Leen, assistant managing editor for investigative reporting at The Washington Post, wrote in a 2014 opinion page article that "the report found no CIA relationship with the drug ring Webb had written about." The complete lack of desire to ask the difficult questions makes me want to scream. Gary Webb, Into the Buzzsaw, CH 13, Prometheus Books. And it ruined that reporter's career. .article-native-ad svg { He became an investigator for the California State Legislature, published a book based on the "Dark Alliance" series in 1998, and did freelance investigative reporting. Going to the CIA to ask if they've ever profited from drug sales in Los Angeles, I suggested to Kornbluh, is rather like asking Fagin if he has ever picked a pocket. By a fortunate coincidence of timing, the report was released on a day when the Monica Lewinsky scandal dominated every front page in the country. Gary Stephen Webb was a Pulitzer prize winning American investigative reporter who exposed cocaine trafficking by the CIA.He wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, which initially backed his articles but later dropped him.Webb was put under pressure most certainly from the CIA under John Deutch for his reporting. And the importance of exposing them. There were no offers. Cleveland Plain Dealer film critic Clint OConnor had a solid featurethe other day about Kill the Messenger, the journalism true-tale movie opening Friday with Jeremy Renner starring as the late Gary Webb. Like Schou, Corn cites the inspector general's report, which he says "acknowledged that the CIA had indeed worked with suspected drugrunners (sic) while supporting the contras. Born January 3rd, 1943 in Montreal, Quebec, he was the son of the late John Douglas Webb and the late Jeannie (Penny) Hardie Penman. The whole business, I suggested to Blum, has echoes of a classic Alfred Hitchcock plot. For two years, Blum and Kerry supervised the interrogation of dozens of witnesses who described CIA-related drug deals in central America. Why bring up old white people atrocities against black people now? Their explosive report, which appeared in 1989, was either ignored, or marginalised, by the American press. "[74] Mary Anne Sharkey, Webb's editor at The Plain Dealer, told writer Alicia Shepard in 1997 that Webb was known as 'the carpenter' "because he had everything nailed down. The story offered no evidence to support such sweeping conclusions, a fatal error that would ultimately destroy Webb, if not his editors. He was so depressed. In city after city, local dealers either bought from Ross or got left behind."[24].
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