Like the CIA and Justice Department reports, it also found that neither Blandn, Meneses, nor Ross were associated with the CIA. He was so depressed. Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst with the George Washington University's National Security Archive, was one of the first to suggest that Webb had overplayed his hand in the Mercury News version of "Dark Alliance". padding:0!important; 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". Instead, he found work in 1978 as a reporter at the Kentucky Post, a local paper affiliated with the larger Cincinnati Post. He began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a strong reputation for investigative writing. [71] "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. The second article described Blandn's background and how he began smuggling cocaine to support the Contras. Garry Webb wrote the 1996 "Dark Alliance" series for the San Jose. The normal process is, or should be, that a reporter files a story and is robustly challenged by his paper's lawyers and editors - who, if satisfied that the report is accurate - publish, then defend the writer to the hilt. Family (1) padding-left: 10px!important; I first heard about Webb eight years ago, I tell Bell, from the Paris-based journalist Paul Moreira. But the biggest loss he had was the writing. But the report was correct. He is from United States. Baca claimed that a drug dealer with close links to the CIA had framed her boyfriend, who was also in the cocaine business. Gary Webb's income source is mostly from being a successful . Gary Webb became, quite unfairly, the victim of one of the most extraordinary examples of piling on by the mainstream press, ever.". 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. "And to an extent, they succeeded.". By the time Webb began researching Dark Alliance, Bell was 38 and they had three children. After his resignation from The Mercury News, Webb expanded the "Dark Alliance" series into a book that responded to the criticism of the series and described his experiences writing the story and dealing with the controversy. "He walked in one day," Bell recalls, "and said, 'You are not going to believe what I just found out.' He was laid off in February 2004 when Assembly Member Fabian Nez was elected Speaker. A secret deal allowed drugs to go unreported by the DCI. "He thought I was being cowardly. 71K views 8 years ago Gary Webb's son Ian talks about the film in which Jeremy Renner plays his late journalist father. Gary Webb was born on August 31, 1955 in Corona, California, USA. According to Schou, the investigation "confirmed key chunks of Webb's allegations." "He told me, not long before he died, that he didn't want to get up in the mornings," she says. Calling the Post's overall focus "misplaced", Overholser expressed regret that the paper had not taken the opportunity to re-examine whether the CIA had overlooked Contra involvement in drug smuggling, "a subject The Post and the public had given short shrift. He was previously married to Sue Bell. Gary Webb's family says his death was Suicide. It was written by Jesse Katz, the same reporter who, less than two years earlier, had described Ross's conglomerate as "the Wal-Mart of crack dealing". After Webb's death, a collection of his stories from before and after the "Dark Alliance" series was published. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. 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. color: #ddd; [33] Golden also referred to the controversy over Webb's contacts with Ross's lawyer. An investigative journalist, Webb became interested in the covert activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. [56] He resigned from the paper in November 1997. "This is an appalling charge," says a tense-looking Deutch. Can these things possibly be? One time he called me and he said: 'I have this plan that will benefit us both.' Gary Webb's Ex-Wife Set to Attend New York Premiere By Richard Horgan October 8, 2014 Cleveland Plain Dealer film critic Clint O'Connor had a solid feature the other day about Kill the. 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? His own paper, the Mercury News, criticized the series in 1997 without providing many specifics. Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. But once the flak really started to fly, from the nation's grandest newspapers, Ceppos - having come under exactly what form of pressure it is difficult to know - printed a retraction which Webb dismissed as spineless. in Central America", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gary_Webb&oldid=1138520387, This page was last edited on 10 February 2023, at 03:36. ", In contrast, the series received support from Steve Weinberg, a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. } Moreira - a senior news producer for Canal Plus - has established a reputation for courage and independence of mind in his own foreign reporting, and was recently described by Le Monde as "the Che Guevara of news media". At the end of March, Ceppos told Webb that he was going to present the internal review findings in a column. Webb put in a call to Robert Parry. Gary Webb was at his desk in the Mercury News's Sacramento office, in July 1995, when he received a message to call Coral Baca, a Hispanic woman from the San Francisco Bay area, allegedly connected to a Colombian drug cartel. Hired by the San Jose Mercury News, Webb contributed to the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. Ceppos and Garcia have long since lost any taste for public discussion of "Dark Alliance". Save 50% with early-bird passes. It concluded, however, that these problems were "a far cry from the type of broad manipulation and corruption of the federal criminal justice system suggested by the original allegations.". Gary Webb, 64, Oroville, Wash., died Oct. 30, 2021. In city after city, local dealers either bought from Ross or got left behind."[24]. She said the paper wanted to make up for what it had done in the past. But Webb had one huge blind side: He was fundamentally a man of passion, not of fairness. 4) The series "created impressions that were open to misinterpretation" through "imprecise language and graphics. But the tragedy had a deeper meaning. The passing of Gary ends more than 50 years with his best friend and loving wife, Marilyn J. He was born August 27, 1968 in Saginaw, Michigan to Taylor Jr. and Loretta Webb. [18], Webb began researching "Dark Alliance" in July 1995. [61] According to the report, it used Webb's reporting and writing as "key resources in focusing and refining the investigation." [5], After high school, Webb attended an Indianapolis community college on a scholarship until his family moved to Cincinnati. 1) It presented only one interpretation of conflicting evidence and in one case "did not include information that contradicted a central assertion of the series." He leaves behind the love of his life and adoring wife of 41 years, Anne Michelle Phillips. She was a native of Minden, LA, but a resident of Crossett for 65 years. "Do not quote me. There was no coffin, casket or tombstone. In an unprecedented move, the then CIA director John Deutch was dispatched to address community leaders in the Watts district of LA. The Department of Justice Inspector-General's report was released on July 23, 1998. *, '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. "He had six in a short period of time." [60], The House Intelligence Committee issued its report in February 2000. The third article discussed the social effects of the crack trade, noting that it had a disparate effect on African-Americans. Pictured as a teenage fan: Gary Numan with Gemma, his now wife, getting his autograph in 1985 years before they got together Gary was 600,000 in debt, and on the verge of going under in. He was found dead on Friday morning in what the police said was an apparent suicide. He cites the case of Alfred McCoy, now Professor of South East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin. And "we really didn't do anything to advance his work or illuminate much to the story, and it was a really kind of tawdry exercise. I felt she really trashed me. But while calling the flaws in the series "unforgivably careless journalism," Overholser also criticized the Post's refusal to print Ceppos' letter defending the series and sharply criticized the Post's coverage of the story. "It says the CIA helped introduce poison into our children. Webb's ex-wife, Stokes, now remarried and still living in Sacramento, had heard it all before, too. 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. "The first story he had to file was about a police horse which had died of constipation.". Gary Stephen Webb (August 31, 1955 December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. "Gary Webb was left to fend for himself. "Report on Alleged Involvement: Findings" 43. Webb worked for several newspapers including The Kentucky Post and Cleveland Plain Dealer. But as Krim told Webb's biographer Nick Schou, "The zeal that helped make Gary a relentless reporter was coupled with an inability to question himself, to entertain the notion that he might have erred. ", "After Gary died," she says, "a reporter from the LA Times came here. Ceppos initially defended Webb, and reportedly showed up at an in-house party wearing a military helmet. [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. 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. [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". In February, Gary Webb gave his ex-wife. A 1985 series, "Doctoring the Truth," uncovered problems in the State Medical Board[12] and led to an Ohio House investigation which resulted in major revisions to the state Medical Practice Act. 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.
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