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. [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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. Baca claimed that a drug dealer with close links to the CIA had framed her boyfriend, who was also in the cocaine business. 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." .article-native-ad p { 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. [68], In August 2004, Webb joined the Sacramento News & Review, an alternative weekly newspaper, where he continued doing investigative writing. 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.. . The attack on Gary Webb and his series in the San Jose Mercury News remains one of the most venomous and factually inane assaults on a professional journalist's competence in living memory . .article-native-ad { He was the much-loved father of Lindsay (Stephen . ", "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. 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. In a long review of the series' claims in The Baltimore Sun, Weinberg said "I think the critics have been far too harsh. Relationships with other women ended badly. He began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a strong reputation for investigative writing. ", She pauses: "That said, he did sleep with a gun under his bed.". "That's right," says Blum. She and Gary were married from 1979 to 2000 and had three children. Webb put in a call to Robert Parry. [20] The website artwork showed the silhouette of a man smoking a crack pipe superimposed over the CIA seal. [5], After high school, Webb attended an Indianapolis community college on a scholarship until his family moved to Cincinnati. His corpse was discovered on the seventh anniversary of his resignation from the Mercury News. "He definitely was depressed. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? I remain astounded by the editorial decisions they made.". The character reporter Irene Abe is said by fans of the show to be a stand in character for the real life Gary Webb. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. . I felt she really trashed me. "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. Unable to get work from any major US newspaper, he spent the four months before his death writing for * a free-sheet covering the Sacramento area. Webb strongly disagreed with Ceppos's column and, in interviews, was harshly critical of the paper's handling of the story. [8] In 1979, Webb married Susan Bell; the couple eventually had three children. I ask Bell. "[38], Surprised by The Washington Post article, The Mercury News's executive editor Jerome Ceppos wrote to the Post defending the series. That was just the way he was.". He was a writer, known for Kill the Messenger (2014), Filming in Georgia (2015) and Crack in America (2015). He was a former member of Bethlehem . ", Many of these are in the series archive at. After the series's publication, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. 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. I mean - please.". "Like enjoy it.". American racer Cooper Webb is married to his wife named Mariah Williams Webb. In February last year he was laid off by the State Legislature. [45], The Post's response came from the paper's ombudsman, Geneva Overholser. 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. Webb is best known for his "Dark Alliance" series, which appeared in The Mercury News in 1996. Instead, he found work in 1978 as a reporter at the Kentucky Post, a local paper affiliated with the larger Cincinnati Post. "Report on Alleged Involvement: Findings" 43. Look at the way the US press reports on Iraq. By 1997, Bell tells me, Webb - whose 30-year career had earned him more awards than there is room for in her study - had been reassigned to the Mercury News's office in Cupertino. The story had little immediate impact. "Which was that, if he wanted a future within the political establishment of the United States, then he should concentrate on other aspects of life.". Even 10 years after his tragic death, the media refuse to let him rest. Gary's story, however, is far from over and could never be killed by something as trivial as a material bullet. "The cause of death was determined to be self . "You sound very scared," Moreira remarks. Blandn and Meneses' high-volume supply of low-priced high-purity cocaine "allowed Ross to sew up the Los Angeles market and move on. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70]. [50] By January, Webb filed drafts of four more articles based on his trip, but his editors concluded that the new articles would not help shore up the original series's claims. . He was born June 18, 1943, in Appleton, son of the late Wilford and Helen (Hauskey) Webb. 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. [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. 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 Webb had one huge blind side: He was fundamentally a man of passion, not of fairness. "He had six in a short period of time." Age 43 years. 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. Webb came home and put his belongings in order, dropping his Kentucky Post poster in the bin. He said: 'No. [19] The series was published in The Mercury News in three parts, from Sunday, 18 August 1996 to 20 August 1996, with a first long article and one or two shorter articles appearing each day. He cites the case of Alfred McCoy, now Professor of South East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin. [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. The film broadened the debate which led to the decriminalisation of . Poor Gary Webb. By the late spring of 1996, Webb was ready to publish. "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. Family (1) "Do you think that a part of him did this out of revenge?" 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. Dec. 13, 2004. That wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been willing to stand up and risk it all.". 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. He wrote that the series likely "oversimplified" the crack epidemic in America and the supposed "critical role" the dealers written about in the series played in it. "He told the guys with him he was fine," she recalls, "got back on the bike, then passed out, half an hour later. An investigative journalist, Webb became interested in the covert activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. 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. "[2], Ceppos noted that Webb did not agree with these conclusions. 2) The series's estimate of the money involved was presented as fact instead of as an estimate. She was a native of Minden, LA, but a resident of Crossett for 65 years. And it was ignored by the US media, for all of those reasons. [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. His wife is Sue Webb (m. 1979-2000) Gary Webb Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. 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. margin-top: 10px; Gary's ex-wife Susan Bell states: "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide." An interesting OPINION, but she supplies no convincing evidence to illustrate what she means by this. One of his last articles examined America's Army, a video game designed by the U.S. "Do not quote me. Garry Webb wrote the 1996 "Dark Alliance" series for the San Jose. 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. Webb disagreed with this conclusion.[1][2]. George Webb and Paul Cottrell have begun a weekly series on CoronaVirus now, Mondays at 5PM, EST on paul Cottrell's Rumble Channel. 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. Webb's research took a year, in the course of which he received death threats. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. He also had this inherent belief that the truth could not harm him. "[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. 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. "They use the giant corporate press rather than saying anything directly. The article resulted in a lawsuit against Webb's paper which the plaintiffs won. His own paper, the Mercury News, criticized the series in 1997 without providing many specifics. "He rang me up that day. Webb took a modestly paid, low-profile job as an investigator with the California State Legislature. Gary was born Sept. 4, 1947, to Percy and Pauline (Haas) Webb. Meneses, an established smuggler and a Contra supporter as well, taught Blandn how to smuggle and provided him with cocaine. "He told me, not long before he died, that he didn't want to get up in the mornings," she says. "[75], Jonathan Krim, The Mercury News editor who recruited Webb from The Plain Dealer and who supervised The Mercury News internal review of "Dark Alliance," told AJR editor Paterno that Webb "had all the qualities you'd want in a reporter: curious, dogged, a very high sense of wanting to expose wrongdoing and to hold private and public officials accountable." 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. 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. "He walked in one day," Bell recalls, "and said, 'You are not going to believe what I just found out.' [71] "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. The third article, by Mitchell and Fulwood, covered the effects of crack on African-Americans and how it affected their reaction to some of the rumors that arose after the "Dark Alliance" series. "[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. GARY WEBB OBITUARY Gary Frank Webb Sept. 27, 1944 - Oct. 23, 2022 Gary passed away peacefully of complications following cardiovascular surgery. Some editors regarded him as stubborn to the point of insolence. Gary's documentation is awesome and his work ethic is unbelievable. Webb, a Pullitzer prize winning journalist, exposed CIA drug trafficking operations in a series of books and reports for the San Jose Mercury News. A secret deal allowed drugs to go unreported by the DCI. Call 911 for assistance. Gary Webb was born on August 31, 1955 in Corona, California, USA. In city after city, local dealers either bought from Ross or got left behind."[24]. The follow-up reporting in the Los Angeles Times and other papers has been criticised for focusing on problems in the series rather than re-examining the earlier CIA-Contra claims. font-weight:500; Then, on 10 December, he resigned. A revised version was published in 1999 that incorporated Webb's response to the CIA and Justice Department reports. 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. Do something else with your life," the voice urges. 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 He was so depressed. 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." ", "After Gary died," she says, "a reporter from the LA Times came here. [33] Golden also referred to the controversy over Webb's contacts with Ross's lawyer. [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. OR was he like Epstein? The first effect of the onslaught was to ease the pressure on the CIA. One time he called me and he said: 'I have this plan that will benefit us both.' [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." 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. 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. By William Kennedy / Jan. 22, 2023 12:00 pm EST. "You do not understand the power of these people," he adds, referring to the US intelligence services. [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. He had also lost his house the week before his suicide. After Webb's death, a collection of his stories from before and after the "Dark Alliance" series was published. He stayed home, playing computer games, and began smoking cannabis heavily. ", The report called several of its findings "troubling." 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." Gary Webb, 64, Oroville, Wash., died Oct. 30, 2021. The third article discussed the social effects of the crack trade, noting that it had a disparate effect on African-Americans. Gary Douglas Webb of Radnor, PA, passed away on October 19, 2021 Born January 3rd, 1943 in Montreal, Quebec, he was the son of the late John Douglas Webb and the late Jeannie (Penny) Hardie. 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.' [69], Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. With hindsight, Bell says, "the signs were there. For instance, he published an article on racial profiling in traffic stops in Esquire magazine, in April 1999. By: E&P Staff The death of investigative reporter Gary Webb has been confirmed as a suicide, according to a coroner's statement. "He was crying. 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. 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. He also defended the series in interviews with all three papers. Then, in August the same year, the first of three instalments of "Dark Alliance" appeared. He was sentenced to life in prison, though the sentence was shortened on appeal and Ross was released in 2009. When it did, beginning with The Washington Post, it shocked Webb's critics as much as his many admirers. 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). "Gary was given the choice of relocating either to San Jose," says Bell, "or to Cupertino". This support "was not directed by anyone within the Contra movement who had an association with the CIA," and the Committee found "no evidence that the CIA or the Intelligence Community was aware of these individuals support. The first article in "Dark Alliance" that discussed the failure of law enforcement agencies to prosecute Blandn and Meneses had mentioned several cases. To show this, the series focused on three men: Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandn, and Norwin Meneses. And yet, for all his Easy Rider tendencies, he was also a dedicated family man with an extraordinary appetite for researching minutiae. In 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb was found dead from an apparent suicide, as Democracy Now! Can these things possibly be? I have also followed up on key topics raised by Paul Cottrell will leading industry experts like Dr. Peter McCollough on the Tommy Carrigan Show, weekly in 2021 and 2022. Contemporary discussions of the series are discussed in the section on, Webb 2011, "Caltrans Ignored Elevated Freeway Safety. Blandn and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. The feeling was that with other news outlets calling for Webb's head, the paper's credibility depended on their joining in on the attacks. He died on December 10, 2004 in Carmichael, California, USA. . At the end of March, Ceppos told Webb that he was going to present the internal review findings in a column. Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. The whole business, I suggested to Blum, has echoes of a classic Alfred Hitchcock plot. 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. Ceppos failed to reply to one phone message and six emails. [13] Webb then moved to the paper's statehouse bureau, where he covered statewide issues and won numerous regional journalism awards. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. Osborn, Barbara Bliss (MarchApril 1998). ", 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. 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. 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". .article-native-ad svg { Gary Webb's income source is mostly from being a successful . Emma Lee Webb. Who Is Gary Webb's Wife? "Looking back," she says, "I think Gary had been obsessed with suicide for some time. Do not quote me on anything.". ", As Webb would tell a friend, after he had been ostracised: "You have to look out, when the big dog gets off the porch.". When Gary originally broke this mind blowing story, the arrogant authority's assumed they could simply ignore him and hope he'd go away. "And to an extent, they succeeded.". Like the CIA and Justice Department reports, it also found that neither Blandn, Meneses, nor Ross were associated with the CIA. And this is not a happy story - or," she adds, "a little one.". Gary was preceded in death by his mother and father, Donna and James Webb of Carpentersville. [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. The series provoked outrage, particularly in the Los Angeles African-American community, and led to four major investigations of its charges.
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