If he could have chosen his own epitaph, it might have been a line from the letter he posted to Bell, immediately before he killed himself: "I do not regret," Webb told her, "anything that I have written." In August of 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb broke the biggest story of his life. "Allow Gary Webb to be there [in the CIA investigation]," a heckler shouts. He received his medical degree from American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine and has been in practice for more than. [34], The Los Angeles Times devoted the most space to the story, publishing a three-part series called "The Cocaine Trail." Gary Webb's family says his death was Suicide. 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. Special Reports - Cocaine, Conspiracy Theories And The Cia In - PBS But the tragedy had a deeper meaning. "[62] It also found no evidence to support Webb's suggestion that several other drug smugglers mentioned in the series were associated with the CIA, or that anyone associated with the CIA or other intelligence agencies was involved in supplying or selling drugs in Los Angeles.[62]. .article-native-ad { Gary Webb was a journalist of outsized talent. WRITTEN IN PAIN - Los Angeles Times In 1996, the award-winning journalist Gary Webb uncovered CIA links to Los Angeles drug dealers. 'It's just good vibes': Cooper Webb, Eli Tomac in tight Supercross When Gary originally broke this mind blowing story, the arrogant authority's assumed they could simply ignore him and hope he'd go away. 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. Gary Webb: More Pieces In The Suicided Puzzle - Pt 1 - Rense His former wife, her voice lowered to a whisper, explains that Webb missed with the first shot (which exited through his left cheek). . Although it did find that both men were major drug dealers, "guilty of enriching themselves at the expense of countless drug users," and that they had contributed money to the Contra cause, "we did not find that their activities were responsible for the crack cocaine epidemic in South Central Los Angeles, much less the rise of crack throughout the nation, or that they were a significant source of support for the Contras. Walter Bogdanich, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who worked with Webb on The Plain Dealer, told American Journalism Review editor Susan Paterno "He was brilliant; he knew more about public records than anybody I've ever known. Garcia is deputy director of the John S Knight Fellowships in Journalism at Stanford University. [81], Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at George Washington University's National Security Archives, also does not agree that the report vindicated the series. That wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been willing to stand up and risk it all.". Webb took a modestly paid, low-profile job as an investigator with the California State Legislature. ", The significant legacy of the Webb case, "the reason this whole affair remains so significant today," Blum says, "is this: the knowledge that, if one individual dares raise such serious issues, they risk confronting a tremendous apparatus that is prepared to whack them hard, and there is very little they can expect by way of support. [41], When the Los Angeles Times series appeared, Ceppos again wrote to defend the original series. 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. ", In contrast, the series received support from Steve Weinberg, a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. He was assigned to its Sacramento bureau, where he was allowed to choose most of his own stories. "[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." I believe that we fell short at every step of our process: in the writing, editing and production of our work. The story was picked up by black talk-radio stations. Instead, he found work in 1978 as a reporter at the Kentucky Post, a local paper affiliated with the larger Cincinnati Post. I ask Bell. To Read the Full Story Become an Adweek+ Subscriber. 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." [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. The article resulted in a lawsuit against Webb's paper which the plaintiffs won. But they underestimated the paradigm shifting power of the internet, and the intelligence of Webb, who not only listed the explosive story online . Depressed, he became increasingly unpredictable in his behaviour and embarked on a series of affairs; he was divorced from Bell in 2000, though he remained close to her throughout his life and lived in a house in nearby Carmichael. Who Is Gary Webb's Wife? A perceptive, engaging woman of 48, she has turned an adjoining study into a small shrine to her late husband, who would have celebrated his 50th birthday five weeks ago. Tomac is used to good feelings when it comes to Daytona. Family (1) Webb resigned from The Mercury News in December 1997. Attorneys' Offices. Webb 'Suicide' Looking More Like Murder - rense.com 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. Dec. 13, 2004. Some editors regarded him as stubborn to the point of insolence. American Journalism Review - Archives But you say - dear God. "He was sleeping more, he hated to get up in the morning, he started having a lot of motorcycle. "[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. line-height:1.5; American racer Cooper Webb is married to his wife named Mariah Williams Webb. "[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 began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a strong reputation for investigative writing. margin: 0 45px; Gary Webb | Okanogan Valley Gazette-Tribune Gary Webb, friends say, was a far more combative character than either the Mercury News's executive editor Ceppos or page editor Garcia. 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. "I told Gary not to go near this story," his source replies, in an emotional voice. When Webb wrote another story on the raid evidence in early October, it received wide attention in Los Angeles. [67], Webb later moved to the State Assembly's Office of Majority Services. He kept saying that he would never get another job in journalism.". This did not happen in Webb's case. 3) The series oversimplified how the crack epidemic grew. 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". While working at the legislature, Webb continued to do freelance investigative reporting, sometimes based on his investigative work. Dark Alliance - Dark Alliance (Strawser) Webb. The new movie Kill the Messenger, based in part on a 2006 book by a former student of mine, eulogizes Webb . Last edited on 10 February 2023, at 03:36, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion, CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking, "To readers of our 'Dark Alliance' series", "America's 'crack' plague has roots in Nicaragua war", "War on drugs has unequal impact on black Americans", "Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Inquiry Findings", "The CIA and Crack: Evidence Is Lacking Of Alleged Plot", "Though Evidence Is Thin, Tale of C.I.A. Writing on the Los Angeles Times opinion page, Schou said, "Webb asserted, improbably, that the Blandn-Meneses-Ross drug ring opened 'the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles,' helping to 'spark a crack explosion in urban America.' [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. It reads: "There should be no fetters on reporters, nor must they tamper with the truth, but give light so the people will find their own way." A series of expose articles in the San Jose Mercury-News by reporter Gary Webb told tales of a drug triangle during the 1980s that linked CIA officials in Central America, a San Francisco drug . By this stage, he was prepared to work as a jobbing reporter. Voices: The Gary Webb saga still has lessons today Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd; 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. He is from United States. Talking about his wife, Mariah Webb is a nurse who also educates about essential products . [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. 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. The series examined the origins of the crack cocaine trade in Los Angeles and claimed that members of the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua had played a major role in creating the trade, using cocaine profits to finance their fight against the government in Nicaragua. And it was ignored by the US media, for all of those reasons. 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. 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. 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. The claim that the drug ring of Meneses-Blandn-Ross sparked the "crack explosion" has been perhaps the most criticized part of the series. The passing of Gary ends more than 50 years with his best friend and loving wife, Marilyn J. When they married, she was aged just 21. "The cause of death was determined to be self . He placed his keys and ID cards on the kitchen table, together with a cremation certificate he had purchased for himself. Gary Webb Obituary (2009) - Elgin, IL - Elgin Courier News - Legacy.com font-weight:500; The "Dark Alliance" series remains controversial. He was taken to hospital by air ambulance. He then transferred to nearby Northern Kentucky University. [39] Carey's critique appeared in mid-October and went through several of the Post's criticisms of the series, including the importance of Blandn's drug ring in spreading crack, questions about Blandn's testimony in court, and how specific series allegations about CIA involvement had been, giving Webb's responses. 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.