". 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". [32], The New York Times published two articles on the series in mid-October, both written by reporter Tim Golden. 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. By the time Webb began researching Dark Alliance, Bell was 38 and they had three children. Meneses, an established smuggler and a Contra supporter as well, taught Blandn how to smuggle and provided him with cocaine. 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. Attorneys' Offices. I first heard about Webb eight years ago, I tell Bell, from the Paris-based journalist Paul Moreira. He is from United States. "He walked in one day," Bell recalls, "and said, 'You are not going to believe what I just found out.' 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". In the final few months of his life, Bell says, Webb became increasingly withdrawn. He kept saying that he would never get another job in journalism.". 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. One of his last articles examined America's Army, a video game designed by the U.S. "As a PhD student, McCoy went to Vietnam and built an absolutely damning case about the CIA's involvement with trafficking heroin. ", She pauses: "That said, he did sleep with a gun under his bed.". [65], After leaving The Mercury News, Webb worked as an investigator for the California State Legislature. Carey ultimately decided that there were problems with several parts of the story and wrote a draft article incorporating his findings. She was a native of Minden, LA, but a resident of Crossett for 65 years. Do not quote me on anything.". "The first story he had to file was about a police horse which had died of constipation.". He was found dead on Friday morning in what the police said was an apparent suicide. 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 . "[76] Scott Herhold, Webb's first editor at The Mercury-News, wrote in a 2013 column that "Gary Webb was a journalist of outsized talent. In 1997 Ceppos was awarded the US Society of Professional Journalists' National Ethics Award. The three articles in the series were written by four reporters: Jesse Katz, Doyle McManus, John Mitchell and Sam Fulwood. . If the antagonism of competing publications was predictable, what happened to Webb within his own newspaper was not. I ask Bell. Gary's documentation is awesome and his work ethic is unbelievable. .article-native-ad p { Contemporary discussions of the series are discussed in the section on, Webb 2011, "Caltrans Ignored Elevated Freeway Safety. Gary Hays Webb, 78, passed away on Monday May 9, 2022, at ThedaCare Regional Medical Center, Neenah. With hindsight, Bell says, "the signs were there. That was just the way he was.". 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. In 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of stories exposing the connection between the CIA and the crack cocaine that was being sold in So. ", Webb had already been cremated and his ashes scattered in the bay off Santa Cruz two weeks before. 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 font-weight:500; [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. Webb became a staff reporter for the San Jose Mercury News in 1988. Then, on 10 December, he resigned. And yet, for all his Easy Rider tendencies, he was also a dedicated family man with an extraordinary appetite for researching minutiae. 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. Webb, according to Bell, was a man who, more than most, found that his mood and self-esteem fluctuated in accordance with his professional fortunes. The CIA admits used the media to ruin his career. 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. 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. But ultimately, the responsibility was, and is, mine.". Two years later, he was promoted to Vice President of Knight Ridder, the Mercury News's parent company; he retired from this position last month. The series revolves around the first crack epidemic and its impact on the culture of the city. 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. The Mercury News reporter came under sustained attack from the weightier US newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and, especially, the Los Angeles Times, infuriated at being scooped, on its own patch, by what it saw as a small-town paper. According to Walt Bogdanich, a former colleague on the Plain Dealer who has won two Pulitzers and now works for The New York Times, Webb was the best retriever of information from public records he has ever seen. 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.". "[77], Webb's reporting in "Dark Alliance" remains controversial. "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". Vivian Corrie, a part of his liver in a life-threatening operation. Video courtesy of documentary FREEWAY: CRACK IN THE SYSTEM premiering on Al Jazeera America in early 2015. [60], It found no information to support the claim that the agency interfered with law enforcement actions against Ross, Blandn or Meneses. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70]. "[55] In June 1997, The Mercury News told Webb it was transferring him from the paper's Sacramento bureau and offered him a choice between working at the main offices in San Jose under closer editorial supervision, or spot reporting in Cupertino; both locations were long commutes from his home in Sacramento. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. Steven Webb . [11], In 1983, Webb moved to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where he continued doing investigative work. A flood of inquiries about Gary Webb's shooting death prompts statement. "Do not quote me. The link between drug-running and the Reagan regime's support for the right-wing terrorist group throughout the 1980s had been public knowledge for over a decade. We are in the living room of Bell's house just outside Sacramento, California. The series follows the stories of several characters whose lives are fated to intersect including CIA operative Teddy McDonald who helps to secure guns for the Contras. While working at the legislature, Webb continued to do freelance investigative reporting, sometimes based on his investigative work. 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." In and out of work, he had a reputation for taking risks. ", As Webb would tell a friend, after he had been ostracised: "You have to look out, when the big dog gets off the porch.". In 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb was found dead from an apparent suicide, as Democracy Now! According to the report's "Epilogue," the report was completed in December 1997 but was not released because the DEA was still attempting to use Danilo Blandn in an investigation of international drug dealers and was concerned that the report would affect the viability of the investigation. For two years, Blum and Kerry supervised the interrogation of dozens of witnesses who described CIA-related drug deals in central America. "Look at what happened to Gary Webb. The article resulted in a lawsuit against Webb's paper which the plaintiffs won. 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. "[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. 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. Webb's series was published on the Mercury News's fledgling website, but it wasn't exactly an instant sensation. He had also lost his house the week before his suicide. [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. By: E&P Staff The death of investigative reporter Gary Webb has been confirmed as a suicide, according to a coroner's statement. Newsweek called Kerry a "randy conspiracy buff". [10] The series, which examined the murder of a coal company president with ties to organized crime, won the national Investigative Reporters and Editors Award for reporting from a small newspaper. Gary Stephen Webb (August 31, 1955 December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. "You do not understand the power of these people," he adds, referring to the US intelligence services. He was born at Emmanuel Hospital in. [37], In 2013, Jesse Katz, a former Los Angeles Times reporter, said of the newspaper's coverage "As an L.A. Times reporter, we saw this series in the San Jose Mercury News and kind of wonder[ed] how legit it was and kind of put it under a microscope, and we did it in a way that most of us who were involved in it, I think, would look back on that and say it was overkill. Sue remarried two years ago. Webb was an assertive figure who drove fast cars and powerful motorcycles, hung heavy metal posters in his office and, at certain times in his life, smoked a fair amount of cannabis. 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. One of these was a 1986 raid on Blandn's drug organization by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, which the article suggested had produced evidence of CIA ties to drug smuggling that was later suppressed. 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 . After the publication of "Dark Alliance," The Mercury News continued to pursue the story, publishing follow-ups to the original series for the next three months. The couple got married recently in November of 2020 after dating for some time. "They had him writing obituaries," she said. Cooper Webb Wife Name Revealed. 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. After introducing the three, the first article discussed primarily Blandn and Meneses, and their relationship with the Contras and the CIA. She said the paper wanted to make up for what it had done in the past. 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. Within weeks, the site was attracting up to 1.3m hits per day. But as his ex-wife told the . Today, Narco News, with support from The Fund for Authentic Journalism, is pleased to announce that the Dark Alliance website has a new, and this time permanent, home at Narco News. Webb was born in Corona, California. [67], Webb later moved to the State Assembly's Office of Majority Services. 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". Webb's then-wife Sue remembers coming home from the shops and finding her. [14] In 1984, Webb wrote a story titled Driving Off With Profits which claimed that the promoters of a race in Cleveland paid themselves nearly a million dollars from funds that should have gone to the city of Cleveland. Gary Webb was born on August 31, 1955 in Corona, California, USA. "[82], Kill the Messenger (2014) is based on Webb's book Dark Alliance and Nick Schou's biography of Webb. He is the oldest son of Pulitzer Prize-winninginvestigative journalist Gary Webb, the subject of the 2014 film "Kill the Messenger," starring Hollywood heavyweight Jeremy Renner. But they underestimated the paradigm shifting power of the internet, and the intelligence of Webb, who not only listed the explosive story online . Connie Webb (304) 778-2546: Status: Homeowner. Some might consider it an inappropriate assignment for a man with responsibilities. What was new about Webb's reports, published under the title "Dark Alliance" in the Californian paper the San Jose Mercury News, was that for the first time it brought the story back home. Nick Schou, a journalist who wrote a 2006 biography of Webb, has claimed that this was the most important error in the series. The first article, by Katz, developed a different picture of the origins of the crack trade than "Dark Alliance" had described, with more gangs and smugglers participating. The story was picked up by black talk-radio stations. 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). Despite some hyped phrasing, "Dark Alliance" appears to be praiseworthy investigative reporting."[47]. "He thought I was being cowardly. She was a homemaker and a member of Hunters Chapel Baptist Church. Join iconic brands and world-class marketing leaders at Brandweek to unlock powerful insights and impact-driven strategies. To Read the Full Story Become an Adweek+ Subscriber. In the column, Ceppos defended parts of the article, writing that the series had "solidly documented" that the drug ring described in the series did have connections with the Contras and did sell large quantities of cocaine in inner-city Los Angeles. 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. Ceppos initially defended Webb, and reportedly showed up at an in-house party wearing a military helmet. According to the report, the Inspector-General's office (OIG) examined all information the agency had "relating to CIA knowledge of drug trafficking allegations in regard to any person directly or indirectly involved in Contra activities." He died by suicide on December 10, 2004. 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 The story offered no evidence to support such sweeping conclusions, a fatal error that would ultimately destroy Webb, if not his editors. I mean - please.". "I am scared," the voice replies. 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. But Ian Webbknows all too well the emotions that come with that experience. [45], The Post's response came from the paper's ombudsman, Geneva Overholser. Army. When his body was found, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was on the DVD machine, and his favourite CD, Ian Hunter's live album Welcome to the Club, was in the CD player. [51], The editors met with Webb several times in February to discuss the results of the paper's internal review and eventually decided to print neither Carey's draft article nor the articles Webb had filed. Webb came home and put his belongings in order, dropping his Kentucky Post poster in the bin. [52] Webb was allowed to keep working on the story and made one more trip to Nicaragua in March. Noting that most of the activities discussed in the report had nothing to do with the people Webb reported on, Kornbluh told Schou, "I can't say it's a vindication. He was born June 18, 1943, in Appleton, son of the late Wilford and Helen (Hauskey) Webb. (Strawser) Webb. }. 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. "Exactly," replied Kornbluh, who - referring specifically to the LA Times, said he is "baffled as to how they could be so gullible. [13] Webb then moved to the paper's statehouse bureau, where he covered statewide issues and won numerous regional journalism awards. Webb followed up Baca's leads at the California State Library, examining Congressional records and FBI reports. Tara Becker-Gray Lee News Network Jan 17, 2019 0 1 of 2 C. Webb The body found at a house fire at 13308 95th Ave. in rural Blue Grass on Thursday night has been identified as Cynthia Webb, 59.. Ceppos and Garcia have long since lost any taste for public discussion of "Dark Alliance". [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. Critics view the series' claims as inaccurate or overstated, while supporters point to the results of a later CIA investigation as vindicating the series. [21] This artwork proved controversial, and The Mercury News later removed it. In February last year he was laid off by the State Legislature. He was a former member of Bethlehem . Gary was born May 5, 1954, to his parents Worley and Margaret Webb, who preceded him in death as well as his brother, David Webb. 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. "They tried to make us look like crazies," says Blum. He was taken to hospital by air ambulance. Born in Corona, California, son of a conservatively minded Marine, he met Bell, whose father was a university lecturer, at high school in Indianapolis. He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage.[71]. [44], Ceppos' column drew editorial responses from both The New York Times and The Washington Post. "To get back at his editors?". He crashed and shredded his clothes, face and body on a barbed-wire fence." Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. The complete lack of desire to ask the difficult questions makes me want to scream. Snowfall is an American crime drama television series set in Los Angeles in 1983. "If I had one dream for you," he wrote, "it was that you would go into journalism and carry on the kind of work I did - fighting, with all your might, the oppression and bigotry and stupidity and greed that surrounds us. GARY WEBB OBITUARY Gary Frank Webb Sept. 27, 1944 - Oct. 23, 2022 Gary passed away peacefully of complications following cardiovascular surgery. [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. Dec. 13, 2004. His own paper, the Mercury News, criticized the series in 1997 without providing many specifics. E&P Staff. It would have been our 25th wedding anniversary," Bell recalls. The "Dark Alliance" series remains controversial. 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. Gary's family found that old, storied, ("priceless to us," as his ex-wife, Susan Bell, described it to me) CDROM among his possessions. The story had little immediate impact. That wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been willing to stand up and risk it all.". [7] After transferring to Northern Kentucky, he entered its journalism program and wrote for the school paper, The Northerner. [73], On the other hand, many of the writers and editors who worked with him have had high praise for him. His wife is Sue Webb (m. 1979-2000) Gary Webb Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. ", "Reporter's suicide confirmed by coroner", "Repercussions From Flawed News Articles", "Herhold: Thinking back on journalist Gary Webb and the CIA", Ex-L.A. Times Writer Apologizes for "Tawdry" Attacks, "Gary Webb was no journalism hero, despite what 'Kill the Messenger' says", "Jeremy Renner's 'Kill the Messenger' Gets Fall Release Date", The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy: A Review of the Justice Department's Investigations and Prosecutions, United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, Report of Investigation Concerning Allegations of Connections Between CIA and The Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States, Central Intelligence Agency Office of the Inspector General, United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, "Secrecy, Conspiracy, and the Media During the CIA-Contra Affair", Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography, "Inside the Dark Alliance: Gary Webb on the CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion", 'A NATURAL STORY': Tribute to 'Dark Alliance' and Journalist Gary Webb, San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center, Archive of Gary Webb stories at Sacramento News and Review, "Frontline: Cocaine, Conspiracy Theories & the C.I.A.
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