"I'd get discouraged," she said, "but I never really gave up hope." Back in 1997, SN&R brought the controversy about Gary Webb to readers with "Secrets and Lies," a cover story about why the mainstream media attacked . Work with a bunch of drug dealers to run guns? ", Webb had already been cremated and his ashes scattered in the bay off Santa Cruz two weeks before. He went into the bedroom, and picked up a .38 that had belonged to his father. margin-bottom: 20px; The complete lack of desire to ask the difficult questions makes me want to scream. GARY WEBB: His wife's office was burglarized. When Gary originally broke this mind blowing story, the arrogant authority's assumed they could simply ignore him and hope he'd go away. "Gary didn't take her seriously," says Susan Bell, "because he was always getting calls alleging weird stuff about the CIA. Gary Stephen Webb(August 31, 1955 - December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. 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 . The CIA Inspector-General's report was issued in two volumes. Its pointed to as one of the clearer cases of CIA intervention as revenge for Webb revealing damaging secrets about the agencies involvement in drug smuggling. Age 43 years. In and out of work, he had a reputation for taking risks.
Voices: The Gary Webb saga still has lessons today WRITTEN IN PAIN - Los Angeles Times 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. In a long review of the series' claims in The Baltimore Sun, Weinberg said "I think the critics have been far too harsh. [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. 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. Poor Gary Webb. [56] He resigned from the paper in November 1997.
Gary Webb: More Pieces In The Suicided Puzzle - Pt 1 - Rense LOS ANGELES, Dec. 12 - Gary Webb, a reporter who won national attention with a series of articles, later discredited, linking the Central Intelligence Agency to the spread of crack .
Gary Webb : Murdered For Exposing The Truth - Educate Inspire Change Start your Independent Premium subscription today. [69], Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. Emma Lee Webb, age 75, of Crossett, AR passed away Monday February 27, 2023, in her home surrounded by her family. But the report was correct. It sounds like a Tom Clancy novel, right? "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". 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. Dec. 13, 2004. [49], The paper also gave Webb permission to visit Central America again to get more evidence supporting the story. But Ian Webbknows all too well the emotions that come with that experience. The reports rejected the series's main claims but were critical of some CIA and law enforcement actions. In 1996, the award-winning journalist Gary Webb uncovered CIA links to Los Angeles drug dealers. They failed because the climate was more sceptical then. 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." 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. The passing of Gary ends more than 50 years with his best friend and loving wife, Marilyn J. 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. "[82], Kill the Messenger (2014) is based on Webb's book Dark Alliance and Nick Schou's biography of Webb. In 1997 Ceppos was awarded the US Society of Professional Journalists' National Ethics Award. Unfortunately, the railroading of Gary Webb had begun and he was run over. His career ended, his livelihood was destroyed and certain games were started to be . [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. The drugs went to South Central LA. Webb may indeed be physically dead, but his research is more alive today than ever before, and continues to haunt the shadow government and snowball into a monster that will undoubtedly have its eventual revenge. He crashed and shredded his clothes, face and body on a barbed-wire fence." He accepted Christ at an early age. Webb worked for several newspapers including The Kentucky Post and Cleveland Plain Dealer. [43] He did this in a column that appeared on November 3, defending the series, but also committing the paper to a review of major criticisms. "He rang me up that day. His corpse was discovered on the seventh anniversary of his resignation from the Mercury News. When Webb wrote another story on the raid evidence in early October, it received wide attention in Los Angeles. 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. Webb's then-wife Sue remembers coming home from the shops and finding her. The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress. When he told me, I said it sounded crazy.
Gary Webb Obituary (1944 - 2022) - Portland, OR - The Oregonian Carey ultimately decided that there were problems with several parts of the story and wrote a draft article incorporating his findings. According to Corn, Webb "was wrong on some important details, but he was, in a way, closer to the truth than many of his establishment media critics who neglected the story of the real CIA-contra-cocaine connection." A passing motorist - a heavily tattooed young man - gave him a lift home, then returned and stole the motorcycle, which police recovered from him three days after Webb's death. [61] According to the report, it used Webb's reporting and writing as "key resources in focusing and refining the investigation." "Gary Webb was left to fend for himself. Am J Mens Health, 2018 Mar 1:1557988318758788. doi: 10.1177/1557988318758788. It also stated that the Contras may have acted with the knowledge and protection of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). "The cause of death was determined to be self . As a result, some major US newspapers ignored its findings completely, while others relegated a brief summary to their inside pages. [73], On the other hand, many of the writers and editors who worked with him have had high praise for him. "[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." 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. 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." 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. He kept saying that he would never get another job in journalism.". Webb, unlike Blum or Kerry, had to face his difficulties alone. [81], Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at George Washington University's National Security Archives, also does not agree that the report vindicated the series. "It sounds crazy," says Bell, "but having his motorbike stolen was the last straw. When she got indignant," she adds, "he went to meet her.". For two years, Blum and Kerry supervised the interrogation of dozens of witnesses who described CIA-related drug deals in central America. 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. He is survived by his loving wife, Wendie, of Elgin; grandmother, Eileen Carrier of Elgin;. While police were preparing the case against her boyfriend, Baca alleged, officers had disclosed documents which revealed that one of her lover's associates had been working for the Contras.
Gary Webb's Ex-Wife Set to Attend New York Premiere - Adweek "[77], Webb's reporting in "Dark Alliance" remains controversial. 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 became an investigator for the California State Legislature, published a book based on the "Dark Alliance" series in 1998, and did freelance investigative reporting. 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. Meneses, an established smuggler and a Contra supporter as well, taught Blandn how to smuggle and provided him with cocaine. It was truthful. But Webb had one huge blind side: He was fundamentally a man of passion, not of fairness.
Gary Webb and the Iran-Contra-Cocaine Connection | WilderUtopia 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.
Gary Webb, MD, FRCPC, FACC - The Donohue Funeral Homes Inc. [51] After discussions with Webb, the column was published on May 11, 1997.[53]. I mean - please.". The CIA Inspector General's report, commissioned in response to the allegations in "Dark Alliance", was published in the autumn of 1998. [28] Maxine Waters, the representative for California's 35th district, which includes South-Central Los Angeles, was also outraged by the articles and became one of Webb's strongest supporters. [3], Webb was born in Corona, California. Actor Jeremy Renner portrays Webb.[83].
Webb 'Suicide' Looking More Like Murder - rense.com He was born at Emmanuel Hospital in. Webb's experience came as no surprise to Jack Blum, senior prosecutor for the Kerry Committee. Webb, whose plans to become a journalist had begun when he was 13, but never included equine death notices, resigned from the Mercury News a few months later. .article-native-ad {
Eighteen Years Ago Today, Journalist Gary Webb Was Murdered After "He was sleeping more, he hated to get up in the morning, he started having a lot of motorcycle. 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. Who Is Gary Webb's Wife? [42] The extent of the criticism, however, convinced Ceppos that The Mercury News had to acknowledge to its readers that the series had been subjected to strong criticism.
Gary Webb - Lake Ridge Chapel & Memorial Designers ", 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. I ask Bell. reports. Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. But, Ceppos wrote, the series "did not meet our standards" in four areas. It was an amazing scoop - but one that would ruin his career and drive him to suicide. He was born Sept.10, 1957 in Willcox, Ariz. to RG Webb and Winnie Mae Shelton. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. } Gary Webb, Into the Buzzsaw, CH 13, Prometheus Books. Gary Webb's income source is mostly from being a successful . And it was ignored by the US media, for all of those reasons. 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. His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner's office. With Baca's encouragement, he started to investigate a large-scale Nicaraguan cocaine dealer named Oscar Danilo Blandn. Webb chose the second option. He was a former member of Bethlehem . In interviews after leaving The Mercury News, Webb described the 1997 controversy as media manipulation. Hired by the San Jose Mercury News, Webb contributed to the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. "[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]. 'Dark Alliance' - both as journalism and as a book - is a convoluted narrative, but the crucial link it establishes is between the "agricultural salesman" Oscar Danilo Blandn, a Contra sympathiser with close CIA links, and his best customer, an LA drug dealer known as "Freeway" Ricky Ross. 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.
Dark Alliance: Gary Webb, Christian Rummel: 9781522694397: Amazon.com When Webb's body was discovered last December, Bell says, this last item had been dumped in the trash. Cooper and Mariah were engaged before they finally tied the knot. He was taken to hospital by air ambulance. He also had this inherent belief that the truth could not harm him.
Kill the Messenger True Story vs. Movie - Real Gary Webb [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. Talking about his wife, Mariah Webb is a nurse who also educates about essential products . Webb's ex wife, Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide. that the "federal government bore some responsibility, however indirect, for the flood of crack that coursed through black neighborhoods in the 1980s"). [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. "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.". 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". His own paper, the Mercury News, criticized the series in 1997 without providing many specifics.
Emma Lee Webb of Crossett, Arkansas | 1947 - 2023 | Obituary "That's right," says Blum. 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. [33] Golden also referred to the controversy over Webb's contacts with Ross's lawyer. We are in the living room of Bell's house just outside Sacramento, California. It was published in 1998 as Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. I remain astounded by the editorial decisions they made.". After his resignation from The Mercury News, Webb expanded the "Dark Alliance" series into a book that responded to the criticism of the series and described his experiences writing the story and dealing with the controversy. He was laid off in February 2004 when Assembly Member Fabian Nez was elected Speaker. So, how much is Gary Webb worth at the age of 49 years old? Garcia is deputy director of the John S Knight Fellowships in Journalism at Stanford University.
Gary Webb on the CIA's Role in the 1980s LA Crack Epidemic - Citizen Truth 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 second bullet," adds Bell, who has worked for more than 20 years in the area of respiratory therapy, "struck his carotid artery. She said the paper wanted to make up for what it had done in the past. } And yet, for all his Easy Rider tendencies, he was also a dedicated family man with an extraordinary appetite for researching minutiae. 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. E&P Staff. [48] Despite the controversy that soon overtook the series, and the request of one board member to reconsider, the branch's board went ahead with the award in November. He was sentenced to life in prison, though the sentence was shortened on appeal and Ross was released in 2009.
Gary Webb - Wikispooks Webb, a Pullitzer prize winning journalist, exposed CIA drug trafficking operations in a series of books and reports for the San Jose Mercury News. "Gary was given the choice of relocating either to San Jose," says Bell, "or to Cupertino". [71] When asked by local reporters about the possibility of two gunshots being a suicide, Lyons replied "It's unusual in a suicide case to have two shots, but it has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility." When he was engaged, he worked hard. She was a native of Minden, LA, but a resident of Crossett for 65 years. Tomac is used to good feelings when it comes to Daytona. 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. He then transferred to nearby Northern Kentucky University. The third article discussed the social effects of the crack trade, noting that it had a disparate effect on African-Americans. padding-bottom: 20px; [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." 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. Gary Webb's wife, Sue Webb (now Sue Stokes), said that he had been depressed for years due to his inability to get hired at a daily newspaper. 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). 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. His erstwhile editors on the Mercury News, meanwhile, saw their careers thrive. Webb disagreed with this conclusion.[1][2]. The response from the American press took two months to arrive. His father was a Marine sergeant, and the family moved frequently, as his career took him to new assignments. The Department of Justice Inspector-General's report was released on July 23, 1998. 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. At the end of March, Ceppos told Webb that he was going to present the internal review findings in a column. n 1996, journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of articles under the title "Dark Alliance" for the suggesting a CIA connection between anti-government contras in Nicaragua and monies raised from.
Gary Webb Was Right | HuffPost Latest News [4] When Webb's father retired from the Marines, the family settled in a suburb of Indianapolis, where Webb and his brother attended high school. The "Dark Alliance" series remains controversial. For instance, he published an article on racial profiling in traffic stops in Esquire magazine, in April 1999. "He was crying. 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. He stayed home, playing computer games, and began smoking cannabis heavily. Webb came home and put his belongings in order, dropping his Kentucky Post poster in the bin. [54] Editors at the paper, on the other hand, felt that Webb had failed to tell them about information that contradicted the series's claims and that he "responded to concerns not with reasoned argument, but with accusations of us selling him out. It also examined "how CIA handled and responded to information regarding allegations of drug trafficking" by people involved in Contra activities or support. One time he called me and he said: 'I have this plan that will benefit us both.' "They had him writing obituaries," she said. A flood of inquiries about Gary Webb's shooting death prompts statement. I believe that we fell short at every step of our process: in the writing, editing and production of our work. 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. Snowfall is an American crime drama television series set in Los Angeles in 1983. Gary Webb (304) 778-2546: Jamie Webb (304) 778-2546: Status: Homeowner. Gary Webb sums up the story in his last major interview just days before his death. In 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb was found dead from an apparent suicide, as Democracy Now! }. In a 2013 article in the LA Weekly, Schou wrote that Webb was "vindicated by a 1998 CIA Inspector General report, which revealed that for more than a decade the agency had covered up a business relationship it had with Nicaraguan drug dealers like Blandn. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. 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". While working at the legislature, Webb continued to do freelance investigative reporting, sometimes based on his investigative work. By the time Webb began researching Dark Alliance, Bell was 38 and they had three children. The new movie Kill the Messenger, based in part on a 2006 book by a former student of mine, eulogizes Webb . . The article discussed Webb's contacts with Ross's attorney and prosecution complaints of how Ross's defense had used Webb's series. Celebrezze eventually sued the Plain Dealer and won an undisclosed out of court settlement.
The Tragic 2004 Death Of Investigative Journalist, Gary Webb Webb strongly disagreed with Ceppos's column and, in interviews, was harshly critical of the paper's handling of the story. and Drugs Has a Life of Its Own", "Pivotal Figures of Newspaper Series May Be Only Bit Players", "Tracking the Genesis of the Crack Trade", "Examining Charges of CIA Role in Crack Sales", "History Fuels Outrage Over Crack Allegations", "Ex-L.A. Times Writer Apologizes for "Tawdry" Attacks", "Mercury News Executive Editor Jerry Ceppos' Letter to the Washington Post", "Washington Post response to Mercury News Executive Editor Jerry Ceppos", "Despite critics, a good story Crack and the contras", "CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy: Epilogue", "CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy: Conclusions", United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "Are You Sure You Want to Ruin Your Career? The first effect of the onslaught was to ease the pressure on the CIA.
Herhold: Thinking back on journalist Gary Webb and the CIA Return of the messenger: How Jeremy Renner's new film Kill The 3) The series oversimplified how the crack epidemic grew. By this stage, he was prepared to work as a jobbing reporter. Can these things possibly be? 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. "Ross," his report went on, dealt "on a scale never before conceived," with "a staggering turnover" of "50 to 100 kilos of cocaine a day".