And the importance of exposing them. After a local newspaper reported that Webb had died from multiple gunshots, the coroner's office received so many calls asking about Webb's death that Sacramento County Coroner Robert Lyons issued a statement confirming Webb had died by suicide. Steven Webb . In city after city, local dealers either bought from Ross or got left behind."[24]. "[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. "He was sleeping more, he hated to get up in the morning, he started having a lot of motorcycle. Cooper and Mariah were engaged before they finally tied the knot. Gary Webb Was Right | HuffPost Latest News .article-native-ad svg { Because the gentile (european caucasian, lepers, fake jews) or white folks agenda has always been to destroy the black man, ever since pharaoh tried to murder Christ by murdering Hebrew babies, until now. The second article described Blandn's background and how he began smuggling cocaine to support the Contras. Gary's documentation is awesome and his work ethic is unbelievable. padding-left: 10px!important; Baca claimed that a drug dealer with close links to the CIA had framed her boyfriend, who was also in the cocaine business. It found that "the allegations contained in the original Mercury News articles were exaggerations of the actual facts." Asking why crack became so prevalent in the Black community of Los Angeles, the article credited Blandn, referring to him as "the Johnny Appleseed of crack in California. "He was crying. During and immediately after the controversy over "Dark Alliance," Webb's earlier writing was examined closely. 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. [41], When the Los Angeles Times series appeared, Ceppos again wrote to defend the original series. As it turned out," she adds, "that was not their intent.". When his medical insurance expired, he stopped taking his antidepressants. In 1996, the award-winning journalist Gary Webb uncovered CIA links to Los Angeles drug dealers. Gary Webb's "Approach Split" in the atrium of 20 Triton Street London. [66] He then transferred to nearby Northern Kentucky University. "Because of Gary Webb's work," said Senator John Kerry, "the CIA launched an investigation that found dozens of connections to drug runners. Voices: The Gary Webb saga still has lessons today Gary is survived by his loving wife of 41 years, Barbara; their son, Jeff; his nephew, Christopher (Stephanie) Webb; niece, Sara (Gary) Dugan; and . He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage.[71]. Thank you." He is from United States. Much of the article highlighted the failure of law enforcement agencies to successfully prosecute them and stated that this was largely due to their Contra and CIA connections. Garcia is deputy director of the John S Knight Fellowships in Journalism at Stanford University. By the late spring of 1996, Webb was ready to publish. WRITTEN IN PAIN - Los Angeles Times [15], In 1988, Webb was recruited by the San Jose Mercury News, which was looking for an investigative reporter. Gary Webb Obituary (2009) - Elgin, IL - Elgin Courier News - Legacy.com In 1997 Ceppos was awarded the US Society of Professional Journalists' National Ethics Award. 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. [36] McManus wrote that Blandn's and Meneses's contributions to Contra organizations were significantly less than the "millions" claimed in the series, and stated there was no evidence that the CIA had tried to protect them. Gary Webb: Murdered For Exposing The Truth - A New Kind Of Human When Gary originally broke this mind blowing story, the arrogant authority's assumed they could simply ignore him and hope he'd go away. "[58], It also concluded that "the claims that Blandn and Meneses were responsible for introducing crack cocaine into South Central Los Angeles and spreading the crack epidemic throughout the country were unsupported." [26] Other papers were slow to pick up the story, but African Americans quickly took note, especially in South Central Los Angeles where the dealers discussed in the series had been active. Every year since investigative journalist Gary Webb took his own life in 2004, I have marked the anniversary of that sad event by recalling the debt that American history owes to Webb for his. "The government side of the story is coming through the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post", he stated. "He definitely was depressed. When he was engaged, he worked hard. Evidence Begins To Indicate Gary Webb Was Murdered - BSNEWS Cuts and amendments were made at the request of Ceppos, executive editor of the Mercury News, and Webb's immediate editor Dawn Garcia, among others. We were dismissed as a bunch of nuts." His father was a Marine sergeant, and the family moved frequently, as his career took him to new assignments. E&P Staff. The February 2000 report by the House Intelligence Committee in turn considered the book's claims as well as the series' claims. 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. "I had to warn Gary that what he was looking at was probably true, but that he would run very big risks," Parry recalls. She and Gary were married from 1979 to 2000 and had three children. Webb, one of the boldest and most outstanding reporters of his generation, was the journalist who, in 1996, established the connection between the CIA and major drug dealers in Los Angeles, some of whose profits had been channelled to fund the Contra guerrilla movement in Nicaragua. "He told the guys with him he was fine," she recalls, "got back on the bike, then passed out, half an hour later. American racer Cooper Webb is married to his wife named Mariah Williams Webb. So, how much is Gary Webb worth at the age of 49 years old? 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. By William Kennedy / Jan. 22, 2023 12:00 pm EST. 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." A Celebration of Life will be . The complete lack of desire to ask the difficult questions makes me want to scream. "[78], While finding this part of the series unsupported, Schou said that some of the series's claims on CIA involvement are supported, writing that "The CIA conducted an internal investigation that acknowledged in March 1998 that the agency had covered up Contra drug trafficking for more than a decade." 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. To Read the Full Story Become an Adweek+ Subscriber. Taken during the London Open House 2014 event. [21] This artwork proved controversial, and The Mercury News later removed it. I ask Bell. By Sam Stanton Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 15, 2004. . 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. It was accurate. Ceppos failed to reply to one phone message and six emails. 71K views 8 years ago Gary Webb's son Ian talks about the film in which Jeremy Renner plays his late journalist father. ", "After Gary died," she says, "a reporter from the LA Times came here. The story had little immediate impact. WEBB, Mr. Gary Lee, our beloved son, husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle went home with his heavenly Father Monday, August 29, 2011 at University of Michigan Hospital. 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. One time he called me and he said: 'I have this plan that will benefit us both.' Gary Webb - Spartacus Educational In an unprecedented move, the then CIA director John Deutch was dispatched to address community leaders in the Watts district of LA. 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. Meneses, an established smuggler and a Contra supporter as well, taught Blandn how to smuggle and provided him with cocaine. Film of this encounter survives. Tiffany L Gary-Webb | School of Public Health Gary Webb, friends say, was a far more combative character than either the Mercury News's executive editor Ceppos or page editor Garcia. In a three-part expos, investigative journalist Gary Webb reported that a guerrilla army in Nicaragua had used crack cocaine sales in Los Angeles' black neighborhoods to fund an attempted coup of Nicaragua's socialist government in the 1980s and that the CIA had purposefully funded it. Do not quote me on anything.". But, Ceppos wrote, the series "did not meet our standards" in four areas. Attorneys' Offices. Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. How the Press and the CIA Killed Gary Webb's Career Webb became a staff reporter for the San Jose Mercury News in 1988. She said the paper wanted to make up for what it had done in the past. 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). The article resulted in a lawsuit against Webb's paper which the plaintiffs won. This emotive last phrase refers to Webb's experience in the immediate aftermath of publication of his three lengthy articles, in the summer of 1996. Ross was also released early after cooperating in an investigation of police corruption, but was rearrested a few months later in a sting operation arranged with Blandn's help. He was taken to hospital by air ambulance. Actor Jeremy Renner portrays Webb.[83]. 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. Webb chose the second option. In a long review of the series' claims in The Baltimore Sun, Weinberg said "I think the critics have been far too harsh. He was a former member of Bethlehem . [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. It would have been our 25th wedding anniversary," Bell recalls. The response from the American press took two months to arrive. 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. Instead, he found work in 1978 as a reporter at the Kentucky Post, a local paper affiliated with the larger Cincinnati Post. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. 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 first effect of the onslaught was to ease the pressure on the CIA. That wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been willing to stand up and risk it all.". 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. It also examined "how CIA handled and responded to information regarding allegations of drug trafficking" by people involved in Contra activities or support. After introducing the three, the first article discussed primarily Blandn and Meneses, and their relationship with the Contras and the CIA. While working at the legislature, Webb continued to do freelance investigative reporting, sometimes based on his investigative work. [29] Waters urged the CIA, the Department of Justice, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate. 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. "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 . Dark Alliance: Gary Webb, Christian Rummel: 9781522694397: Amazon.com The CIA, the drug dealers, and the tragedy of Gary Webb - The Telegraph Then, on 10 December, he resigned. Army. Webb moved his wife and two young children to a suburb and continued a tradition he had started in Cleveland, restoring their small house with the help of how-to books, installing wainscoting and custom tile, new cabinets and gardens, while putting in overtime at the paper. In August of 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb broke the biggest story of his life. The third article discussed the social effects of the crack trade, noting that it had a disparate effect on African-Americans. It found that Blandn received permanent resident status "in a wholly improper manner" and that for some time the Department "was not certain whether to prosecute Meneses, or use him as a cooperating witness." "Everyone got out and left the person who had made the noise - issued the report - alone. But the tragedy had a deeper meaning. The claim that the drug ring of Meneses-Blandn-Ross sparked the "crack explosion" has been perhaps the most criticized part of the series. Herhold: Thinking back on journalist Gary Webb and the CIA If the antagonism of competing publications was predictable, what happened to Webb within his own newspaper was not. I realise now he was thinking about suicide.". For instance, he published an article on racial profiling in traffic stops in Esquire magazine, in April 1999. It sounds like a Tom Clancy novel, right? To pay off his mounting debts, Webb sold the Carmichael property, where he was living alone, and arranged to move in with his mother. [17] The Mercury News's coverage of the earthquake won its staff the Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting in 1990. Can these things possibly be? His erstwhile editors on the Mercury News, meanwhile, saw their careers thrive. [5], After high school, Webb attended an Indianapolis community college on a scholarship until his family moved to Cincinnati. At the commemorative service for Webb, held at the Doubletree Hotel in Sacramento, Bell read out the letter Webb had written to his son Eric, now 17. When Webb wrote another story on the raid evidence in early October, it received wide attention in Los Angeles. Gary Webb and 'Kill the Messenger': Reporter played by - cleveland ", As Webb would tell a friend, after he had been ostracised: "You have to look out, when the big dog gets off the porch.". .article-native-ad p { Gary Webb, Into the Buzzsaw, CH 13, Prometheus Books. Hired by the San Jose Mercury News, Webb contributed to the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake.
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