Gary Webb, a hero of authentic journalism, an inspiration to truth-seekers around the world, a friend to all of us at Narco News, but now an unemployable outcast in the world of commercial newspapers, took his own life on December 10, 2004. Gary and Karla James Webb married and blended their families on January 7, 1989 in O'Donnell, Texas. [3], Webb was born in Corona, California. 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. There was no coffin, casket or tombstone. In city after city, local dealers either bought from Ross or got left behind."[24]. 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. Celebrity. It was good that his story forced those reports to come out, but part of what made that happen was based on misleading information. [68], In August 2004, Webb joined the Sacramento News & Review, an alternative weekly newspaper, where he continued doing investigative writing. I realise now he was thinking about suicide.". "They use the giant corporate press rather than saying anything directly. 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. 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. An editorial in the Times, while criticizing the series for making "unsubstantiated charges", conceded that it did find "drug-smuggling and dealing by Nicaraguans with at least tentative connections to the Contras" and called for further investigation. As we now know today thanks to Gary's . "The first story he had to file was about a police horse which had died of constipation.". [18], Webb began researching "Dark Alliance" in July 1995. Should these editors subsequently deem the story to have been fatally flawed, they take the consequences. He wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, which initially backed his articles but later dropped him. "He started having motorcycle crashes," Bell says. But they underestimated the paradigm shifting power of the internet, and the intelligence of Webb, who not only listed the explosive story online . Obituaries / August 21, 2021. It also stated that the Contras may have acted with the knowledge and protection of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). 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. Work with a bunch of drug dealers to run guns? He kept saying that he would never get another job in journalism.". 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.' 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 February 2000 report by the House Intelligence Committee in turn considered the book's claims as well as the series' claims. Webb's experience came as no surprise to Jack Blum, senior prosecutor for the Kerry Committee. [15], In 1988, Webb was recruited by the San Jose Mercury News, which was looking for an investigative reporter. Gary Webb, 49, an investigative reporter who wrote a widely criticized series linking the CIA to the explosion of crack cocaine in Los Angeles, was found dead Dec. 10 at his home near. Funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. on Monday, May 19, 2003 at Goodrich United Methodist Church, 8071 S. State Rd., Goodrich, Pastor Karl Zeigler will officiate. It was accurate. 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. [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. It's . While working at the legislature, Webb continued to do freelance investigative reporting, sometimes based on his investigative work. He stayed home, playing computer games, and began smoking cannabis heavily. "Do not quote me. His resurrected website died with him: the company hosting it was bought out and the files lost. The response from the American press took two months to arrive. Gary Webb was born in Corona, California, in 1955. Do something else with your life," the voice urges. After gaining access to secret grand jury transcripts in 1996, and following the subsequent paper trail that followed therein, Gary Webb made the shocking discovery that government informant, Oscar Danilo Blandn, was covertly selling tons of cocaine for the Central Intelligence Agency in South Central Los Angeles, and other parts of the country. It was published in 1998 as Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. ", As Webb would tell a friend, after he had been ostracised: "You have to look out, when the big dog gets off the porch.". The hard-charging investigative reporter's career imploded in the wake of his much-criticized "Dark Alliance" series about the CIA and crack cocaine. In the six years he worked at its Sacramento office, he won the HL Mencken award, for a story exposing corruption in California's drug enforcement agency, and his Pulitzer prize - won jointly, as part of a Mercury News team covering the 1990 Loma Prieta earthquake. E&P Staff. An investigative journalist, Webb became interested in the covert activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. [73], On the other hand, many of the writers and editors who worked with him have had high praise for him. [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. Jack Blum, who was the lead investigator for Senator John Kerry's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, which produced a highly damning 1989 report on drug-smuggling in the guise of national security, is one of several commentators to have questioned aspects of Webb's original reporting. "People told me that," she says. The article resulted in a lawsuit against Webb's paper which the plaintiffs won. Webb, a former San Jose Mercury News reporter, was found dead in his Carmichael home Friday morning. But the tragedy had a deeper meaning. Both sides were left angry and disappointed. After a local paper reported that he had died from multiple gunshots, the coroner's office received so many calls asking about Webb's death that Sacramento County Coroner Robert Lyons . Jeremy Renner plays Gary Webb in "Kill the Messenger." (Chuck Zlotnick/Focus Features) Webb resigned and wrote a book defending his reporting. 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 real Gary Webb talks about his 1996 story "Dark Alliance," which criticizes the CIA's involvement (or lack thereof) with regard to the cocaine coming into the U.S. during the 1980s. [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." "[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." 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. in Central America", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gary_Webb&oldid=1149653447, This page was last edited on 13 April 2023, at 15:41. 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, 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. So, this is not something you really make a career out of, nor would you want to. 2) The series's estimate of the money involved was presented as fact instead of as an estimate. Gary Webb was a US Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who broke the story of the CIA involvement in the importation of cocaine into the U.S. 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. His wife, Gemma, was a member of the Sidcup fan club. Managed by: Pam Wilson (may be slow to respond) Last Updated: After the series's publication, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. Gary was born Sept. 4, 1947, to Percy and Pauline (Haas) Webb. Burial will follow at Flint Memorial Park. 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. "[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. Then, in August the same year, the first of three instalments of "Dark Alliance" appeared. Celebrezze eventually sued the Plain Dealer and won an undisclosed out of court settlement. Webb was put under pressure most certainly from the CIA under John Deutch for his reporting. We are in the living room of Bell's house just outside Sacramento, California. 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. By the end of September, three federal investigations had been announced: an investigation into the CIA allegations conducted by CIA Inspector-General Frederick Hitz, an investigation into the law enforcement allegations by Justice Department Inspector-General Michael Bromwich, and a second investigation into the CIA by the House Intelligence Committee. The first effect of the onslaught was to ease the pressure on the CIA. . 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". Suzette is preceded in death by: Mother: Geneice Taylor Thomas. His former wife, her voice lowered to a whisper, explains that Webb missed with the first shot (which exited through his left cheek). The Department of Justice Inspector-General's report was released on July 23, 1998. He accepted Christ at an early age. Like Schou, Corn cites the inspector general's report, which he says "acknowledged that the CIA had indeed worked with suspected drugrunners (sic) while supporting the contras. 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 documentation is awesome and his work ethic is unbelievable. 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 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. Webb disagreed with this conclusion.[1][2]. When his medical insurance expired, he stopped taking his antidepressants. "For the better part of a decade," it began, "a San Francisco drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funnelled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the US Central Intelligence Agency.". "The cause of death was determined to be self . "If there was an eye to the storm," Katz wrote, "if there was a mastermind behind crack's decade-long reign, if there was one outlaw most responsible for flooding LA's streets with mass-marketed cocaine, his name was Freeway Rick. ", She pauses: "That said, he did sleep with a gun under his bed.". Unto his romantic life, Gary married Gemma O'Neil in 1997. The article resulted in a lawsuit against Webb 's experience came as no surprise Jack... Out of, nor would you want to 2 ) the series the. American press took two months to arrive a lawsuit against Webb 's paper which the plaintiffs won constipation ``! 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