[63]Dark Alliance was a 1998 Pen/Newman's Own First Amendment Award Finalist, 1998 San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, 1999 Bay Area Book Reviewers Award Finalist, and 1999 Firecracker Alternative Booksellers Award Winner in the Politics category. He received his medical degree from American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine and has been in practice for more than. Webb worked for several newspapers including The Kentucky Post and Cleveland Plain Dealer. When Ross discovered the market for crack in Los Angeles, he began buying cocaine from Blandn. "[80], Not all writers agree that the Inspector-General's report supported the series's claims. In a three-part expos, investigative journalist Gary Webb reported that a guerrilla army in Nicaragua had used crack cocaine sales in Los Angeles' black neighborhoods to fund an attempted coup of Nicaragua's socialist government in the 1980s and that the CIA had purposefully funded it. "I had to warn Gary that what he was looking at was probably true, but that he would run very big risks," Parry recalls. 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. Gary Webb Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth, Family 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. Pictured as a teenage fan: Gary Numan with Gemma, his now wife, getting his autograph in 1985 years before they got together Gary was 600,000 in debt, and on the verge of going under in. His death was especially traumatic to the family since - as the coroner said - it could not be established whether he died instantly, or bled to death. We're well aware that they/it (the cia) did do it. I mean - please.". Dark Alliance - Dark Alliance Part of what makes OConnors article so compelling are the candid thoughts of Webbs former wife Sue Stokes. The CIA, the drug dealers, and the tragedy of Gary Webb - The Telegraph Emma Lee Webb, age 75, of Crossett, AR passed away Monday February 27, 2023, in her home surrounded by her family. 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. Osborn, Barbara Bliss (MarchApril 1998). She kept crying about how terrible it all was - by which I mean that she was, physically, crying. As it turned out," she adds, "that was not their intent.". Webb's series was published on the Mercury News's fledgling website, but it wasn't exactly an instant sensation. [61] According to the report, it used Webb's reporting and writing as "key resources in focusing and refining the investigation." He told me: 'If I can't do what I want to do, what's the point?' The Tragic 2004 Death Of Investigative Journalist, Gary Webb He kept saying that he would never get another job in journalism.". Tomac is used to good feelings when it comes to Daytona. . 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. He accepted Christ at an early age. 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. That wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been willing to stand up and risk it all.". The three articles in the series were written by four reporters: Jesse Katz, Doyle McManus, John Mitchell and Sam Fulwood. How Kill the Messenger Will Vindicate Investigative Journalist Gary Webb 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). "Do not quote me. He was a writer, known for Kill the Messenger (2014), Filming in Georgia (2015) and Crack in America (2015). The third article discussed the social effects of the crack trade, noting that it had a disparate effect on African-Americans. He was found dead on Friday morning in what the police said was an apparent suicide. 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. She and Gary were married from 1979 to 2000 and had three children. Gary Webb | Obituary | The Daily Item Man Donates Liver To Ex-Wife - CBS News Gary Webb, Into the Buzzsaw, CH 13, Prometheus Books. "[72] California Representative Maxine Waters, who was Webb's strongest supporter in Congress after the "Dark Alliance" controversy broke, issued a statement after Webb's death calling him "one of the finest investigative journalists that our country has ever seen. Steven Webb . The CIA Inspector-General's report was issued in two volumes. Gary Stephen Webb was a Pulitzer prize winning American investigative reporter who exposed cocaine trafficking by the CIA.He wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, which initially backed his articles but later dropped him.Webb was put under pressure most certainly from the CIA under John Deutch for his reporting. [17] The Mercury News's coverage of the earthquake won its staff the Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting in 1990. He was born June 18, 1943, in Appleton, son of the late Wilford and Helen (Hauskey) Webb. [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. Who Is Gary Webb's Wife? "Gary Webb was left to fend for himself. . [36] McManus wrote that Blandn's and Meneses's contributions to Contra organizations were significantly less than the "millions" claimed in the series, and stated there was no evidence that the CIA had tried to protect them. Jeremy Renner as Gary Webb How Kill the Messenger Will Vindicate Investigative Journalist Gary Webb Melinda Welsh September 29, 2014 This one has all the ingredients of a dreamed-up Hollywood. Walter Bogdanich, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who worked with Webb on The Plain Dealer, told American Journalism Review editor Susan Paterno "He was brilliant; he knew more about public records than anybody I've ever known. margin-bottom: 20px; Webb's research took a year, in the course of which he received death threats. 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. I first heard about Webb eight years ago, I tell Bell, from the Paris-based journalist Paul Moreira. 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. Gary Webb was born in Corona, California, in 1955. He stayed home, playing computer games, and began smoking cannabis heavily. He was the much-loved father of Lindsay (Stephen . 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. "Looking back," she says, "I think Gary had been obsessed with suicide for some time. 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. 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. 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. One of his last articles examined America's Army, a video game designed by the U.S. When Webb wrote another story on the raid evidence in early October, it received wide attention in Los Angeles. "[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." 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. [68], In August 2004, Webb joined the Sacramento News & Review, an alternative weekly newspaper, where he continued doing investigative writing. American racer Cooper Webb is married to his wife named Mariah Williams Webb. Nobody who heads a government agency can let such an allegation stand.". Baca claimed that a drug dealer with close links to the CIA had framed her boyfriend, who was also in the cocaine business. By: E&P Staff The death of investigative reporter Gary Webb has been confirmed as a suicide, according to a coroner's statement. Gary Stephen Webb(August 31, 1955 - December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. "[64] Webb's longest response to the controversy was in "The Mighty Wurlitzer Plays On," a chapter he contributed to an anthology of press criticism: .mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, If we had met five years ago, you wouldn't have found a more staunch defender of the newspaper industry than me And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. [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. With hindsight, Bell says, "the signs were there. Gary Webb (Investigative Journalist) Wiki, Biography, Age, Wife, Family Special Reports - Cocaine, Conspiracy Theories And The Cia In - PBS Gary's documentation is awesome and his work ethic is unbelievable. Taken during the London Open House 2014 event. We are in the living room of Bell's house just outside Sacramento, California. Leen, who covered the cocaine trade for the Miami Herald in the 1980s, rejects the claim that "because the report uncovered an agency mindset of indifference to drug-smuggling allegations", it vindicated Webb's reporting. 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. 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. "[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." Relationships with other women ended badly. line-height:1.5; Webb's continuing reporting also triggered a fourth investigation. Webb began to shift from cynicism to curiosity. Gary Webb: Murdered For Exposing The Truth - A New Kind Of Human 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.". Because Blandn cooperated with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), he spent only 28 months in prison, became a paid government informant, and received permanent resident status. 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. A time of fellowship and remembrance is scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, March 6, 2019, at Lake Ridge Chapel and Memorial Designers. border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd; [35] The second article, by McManus, was the longest of the series and dealt with the role of the Contras in the drug trade and CIA knowledge of drug activities by the Contras. *, 'Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion' is published in the UK by Seven Stories Press, priced 11.99, Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. 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. The February 2000 report by the House Intelligence Committee in turn considered the book's claims as well as the series' claims. He made that very clear. But his central thesis - that the CIA, having participated in narcotics trafficking in central America, had, at best, turned a blind eye to the activities of drug dealers in LA - has never been in question. [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 also defended the series in interviews with all three papers. Gary Hays Webb, 78, passed away on Monday May 9, 2022, at ThedaCare Regional Medical Center, Neenah. [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. 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 first one, "The California Story," was issued in a classified version on December 17, 1997, and in an unclassified version on January 29, 1998. He went into the bedroom, and picked up a .38 that had belonged to his father. "I think Kerry learnt a lesson from all this," reporter Robert Parry says. Attorneys' Offices. color:rgb(46,179,178); Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst with the George Washington University's National Security Archive, was one of the first to suggest that Webb had overplayed his hand in the Mercury News version of "Dark Alliance". 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. The story was picked up by black talk-radio stations. He leaves behind the love of his life and adoring wife of 41 years, Anne Michelle Phillips. "[77], Webb's reporting in "Dark Alliance" remains controversial. 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. [22], The lede of the first article set out the series' basic claims: "For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency." The "Dark Alliance" series remains controversial. And the importance of exposing them. ", "After Gary died," she says, "a reporter from the LA Times came here. When he was engaged, he worked hard. .article-native-ad { Dr. Gary A. Webb is a geriatrician in Marco Island, Florida. His victory in the event last year gave him . Depressed, he became increasingly unpredictable in his behaviour and embarked on a series of affairs; he was divorced from Bell in 2000, though he remained close to her throughout his life and lived in a house in nearby Carmichael. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. I ask Bell. [3], Webb was born in Corona, California. He recently told the American Journalism Review (whose scrupulously researched piece, by Susan Paterno, is the only serious documentation of the Webb case I could find anywhere in the orthodox American media) that Webb's critics in rival newspapers, "quoted these CIA guys - who had a tremendous amount to hide - as though they were telling the truth. Can these things possibly be? His wife is Sue Webb (m. 1979-2000) Gary Webb Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. Ricky Ross (drug trafficker) - Wikipedia And when he got something in his head, he was determined to do it. 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. Return of the messenger: How Jeremy Renner's new film Kill The I felt she really trashed me. When Webb's body was discovered last December, Bell says, this last item had been dumped in the trash. 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. The Open Mic: A Few Words with Cinematographer Ian Webb Gary Webb Obituary (2009) - Elgin, IL - Elgin Courier News - Legacy.com [34], The Los Angeles Times devoted the most space to the story, publishing a three-part series called "The Cocaine Trail." He began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a strong reputation for investigative writing. 'It's just good vibes': Cooper Webb, Eli Tomac in tight Supercross Film of this encounter survives. This is why Webb's "Dark Alliance" series is an essential source, a primary text that every journalism student should study. The series ran from October 2022, 1996, and was researched by a team of 17 reporters. [52] Webb was allowed to keep working on the story and made one more trip to Nicaragua in March. Join iconic brands and world-class marketing leaders at Brandweek to unlock powerful insights and impact-driven strategies. Cleveland Plain Dealer film critic Clint OConnor had a solid featurethe other day about Kill the Messenger, the journalism true-tale movie opening Friday with Jeremy Renner starring as the late Gary Webb. He was sentenced to life in prison, though the sentence was shortened on appeal and Ross was released in 2009. Meneses, an established smuggler and a Contra supporter as well, taught Blandn how to smuggle and provided him with cocaine. 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. Attend in Miami or virtually, Sept. 1114. "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". In February last year he was laid off by the State Legislature. Gary Webb Was Right | HuffPost Latest News Investigative journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of stories in 1996 for the San Jose Mercury News that documented the US-government-backed Contra insurgents' drug pipeline into Los Angeles. The couple got married recently in November of 2020 after dating for some time. Work with a bunch of drug dealers to run guns? (Strawser) Webb. It would have been our 25th wedding anniversary," Bell recalls. Susan Bell: a shameful secret history - The Independent [5], After high school, Webb attended an Indianapolis community college on a scholarship until his family moved to Cincinnati. [60], It found no information to support the claim that the agency interfered with law enforcement actions against Ross, Blandn or Meneses. Garcia is deputy director of the John S Knight Fellowships in Journalism at Stanford University. He is from United States. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. "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.". Although Blandn's cartel was undoubtedly one of the first to bring crack to LA, Webb was almost certainly suffering a rush of blood when he described the group as "the first pipeline" into the city. But you say - dear God. Gary Webb sums up the story in his last major interview just days before his death. [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. 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. And it ruined that reporter's career. Gary Webb's family says his death was Suicide. [7] After transferring to Northern Kentucky, he entered its journalism program and wrote for the school paper, The Northerner. [15], In 1988, Webb was recruited by the San Jose Mercury News, which was looking for an investigative reporter. It was accurate. 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. The Warning in Gary Webb's Death - Consortium News This emotive last phrase refers to Webb's experience in the immediate aftermath of publication of his three lengthy articles, in the summer of 1996. 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. Hired by the San Jose Mercury News, Webb contributed to the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. Family (1) Kill the Messenger review - what really happened to Gary Webb . font-weight:500; [51] After discussions with Webb, the column was published on May 11, 1997.[53]. [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. "This is an appalling charge," says a tense-looking Deutch. [31] In their front-page article, reporters Roberto Suro and Walter Pincus wrote that "available information" did not support the series's claims and that "the rise of crack" was "a broad-based phenomenon" driven in numerous places by diverse players. Much of the article highlighted the failure of law enforcement agencies to successfully prosecute them and stated that this was largely due to their Contra and CIA connections. 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. When she got indignant," she adds, "he went to meet her.". The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress. 4) The series "created impressions that were open to misinterpretation" through "imprecise language and graphics. "The cause of death was determined to be self .