His assignments included investigating racial profiling by the California Highway Patrol and charges that the Oracle Corporation had received a no-bid contract award of $95 million in 2001. 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. Webb put in a call to Robert Parry. [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. 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. "That's right," says Blum. It was truthful. 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. "The government side of the story is coming through the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post", he stated. He received his medical degree from American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine and has been in practice for more than. A revised version was published in 1999 that incorporated Webb's response to the CIA and Justice Department reports. It was an amazing scoop - but one that would ruin his career and drive him to suicide. '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. "And to an extent, they succeeded.". While working at the legislature, Webb continued to do freelance investigative reporting, sometimes based on his investigative work. That wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been willing to stand up and risk it all.". Gary's story, however, is far from over and could never be killed by something as trivial as a material bullet. 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. Tiffany L Gary-Webb | School of Public Health [65], After leaving The Mercury News, Webb worked as an investigator for the California State Legislature. "Report on Alleged Involvement: Findings" 43. 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. The series ran from October 2022, 1996, and was researched by a team of 17 reporters. He went into the bedroom, and picked up a .38 that had belonged to his father. He was laid off in February 2004 when Assembly Member Fabian Nez was elected Speaker. 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. We had been here before." "Allow Gary Webb to be there [in the CIA investigation]," a heckler shouts. [21] This artwork proved controversial, and The Mercury News later removed it. Evidence Begins To Indicate Gary Webb Was Murdered - BSNEWS 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. But the report was correct. 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. 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. "But Gary thought that if something was true, it should be told. By William Kennedy / Jan. 22, 2023 12:00 pm EST. On Dec. 9, 2004, the 49-year-old Gary Stephen Webb, Pulitzer prize-winning US investigative journalist, typed out suicide notes to his ex-wife and his three children; he laid out a certificate for his cremation; he taped a note on the door telling movers - who were coming the next morning to move him out of his rental house near Sacramento - to 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. Kill the Messenger review - what really happened to Gary Webb His. On the last day Webb was alive, his motorbike broke down while he was moving to his mother's house. 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. ", She pauses: "That said, he did sleep with a gun under his bed.". [45], The Post's response came from the paper's ombudsman, Geneva Overholser. [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. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. Webb had become, as somebody put it, "radioactive". 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. 'It's just good vibes': Cooper Webb, Eli Tomac in tight Supercross Tomac is used to good feelings when it comes to Daytona. Join iconic brands and world-class marketing leaders at Brandweek to unlock powerful insights and impact-driven strategies. It found that "the allegations contained in the original Mercury News articles were exaggerations of the actual facts." Gary Webb Resigns from the San Jose Mercury News 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. 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. "He rang me up that day. "They had him writing obituaries," she said. 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. 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. 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. Cuts and amendments were made at the request of Ceppos, executive editor of the Mercury News, and Webb's immediate editor Dawn Garcia, among others. "[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." Webb took a modestly paid, low-profile job as an investigator with the California State Legislature. [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." Dispelling the Rumors: Gary Webb's Death Confirmed As Suicide Eighteen Years Ago Today, Journalist Gary Webb Was Murdered After "By the end of his life he was just in a lot of pain," said Webb's ex-wife, Susan Bell. ", The report called several of its findings "troubling." He cites the case of Alfred McCoy, now Professor of South East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin. She and Gary were married from 1979 to 2000 and had three children. [34], The Los Angeles Times devoted the most space to the story, publishing a three-part series called "The Cocaine Trail." Gary Webb was born in Corona, California, in 1955. A flood of inquiries about Gary Webb's shooting death prompts statement. 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. [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. Special Reports - Cocaine, Conspiracy Theories And The Cia In - PBS We're well aware that they/it (the cia) did do it. Gary Webb sums up the story in his last major interview just days before his death. Gary Webb | Obituary | The Daily Item [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." Gary Webb (Investigative Journalist) Wiki, Biography, Age, Wife, Family Gary Stephen Webb(August 31, 1955 - December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. margin: 0 45px; Gary-Webb TL, Walker EA, Realmuto L, Kamler A, Lukin J, Tyson W, Carrasquillo O, Weiss L. Translation of the National Diabetes Prevention Program to Engage Men in Disadvantaged Neighborhoods in New York City: A Description of Power Up for Health. He was a writer, known for Kill the Messenger (2014), Filming in Georgia (2015) and Crack in America (2015). "It says the CIA helped introduce poison into our children. } Save 50% with early-bird passes. * The agency's response was to try to prevent him from getting his doctorate, then block his advancement in the academic world. Webb was born in Corona, California. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. Dr. Gary A. Webb, MD | Marco Island, FL | Geriatrician | US News Doctors On one road trip, in 2001, he came off the motorcycle and split his helmet open. [81], Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at George Washington University's National Security Archives, also does not agree that the report vindicated the series. 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 [13] Webb then moved to the paper's statehouse bureau, where he covered statewide issues and won numerous regional journalism awards. Emma Lee Webb. 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.' She kept crying about how terrible it all was - by which I mean that she was, physically, crying. "[80], Not all writers agree that the Inspector-General's report supported the series's claims. How Kill the Messenger Will Vindicate Investigative Journalist Gary Webb } Views on Webb's journalism have been polarized. 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. Newsweek called Kerry a "randy conspiracy buff". How the Press and the CIA Killed Gary Webb's Career [49], The paper also gave Webb permission to visit Central America again to get more evidence supporting the story. Webb resigned from The Mercury News in December 1997. 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. Going to the CIA to ask if they've ever profited from drug sales in Los Angeles, I suggested to Kornbluh, is rather like asking Fagin if he has ever picked a pocket. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70]. When facts didn't fit his theory, he tended to shove them to the sidelines. Sue remarried two years ago. "[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. [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. Gary Webb's income source is mostly from being a successful . "Exactly," replied Kornbluh, who - referring specifically to the LA Times, said he is "baffled as to how they could be so gullible. Steven Webb . His career ended, his livelihood was destroyed and certain games were started to be . After Webb's death, a collection of his stories from before and after the "Dark Alliance" series was published. Then, in August the same year, the first of three instalments of "Dark Alliance" appeared. "I am scared," the voice replies. [32], The New York Times published two articles on the series in mid-October, both written by reporter Tim Golden. By: E&P Staff The death of investigative reporter Gary Webb has been confirmed as a suicide, according to a coroner's statement. Gary Webb passed away on March 2, 2019. [57], The report covered actions by Department of Justice employees in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the DEA, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and U.S. Dr. Gary A. Webb is a geriatrician in Marco Island, Florida. Look at the way the US press reports on Iraq. Emma Lee Webb of Crossett, Arkansas | 1947 - 2023 | Obituary [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. 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. This did not happen in Webb's case. Unfortunately, the railroading of Gary Webb had begun and he was run over. The Death of Gary Webb - Beyond Chron OR was he like Epstein? 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." "He told me, not long before he died, that he didn't want to get up in the mornings," she says. "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. How Gary Webb Linked The CIA To The Crack Epidemic - All That's Interesting 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 . In addition, Gary left multiple suicide notes to family members which were confirmed to be in his own hand by them. "Look at what happened to Gary Webb. Ceppos and Garcia have long since lost any taste for public discussion of "Dark Alliance". After the series's publication, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. [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. By Sam Stanton Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 15, 2004. . "They tried to make us look like crazies," says Blum. ". Family (1) I felt she really trashed me. "[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. The series provoked outrage, particularly in the Los Angeles African-American community, and led to four major investigations of its charges. 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". A Celebration of Life will be . 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". [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. "[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. [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. "He was crying. He was assigned to its Sacramento bureau, where he was allowed to choose most of his own stories. 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 Right | HuffPost Latest News The story was picked up by black talk-radio stations. Cooper Webb Wife Name Revealed. Gary Douglas Webb of Radnor, PA, passed away on October 19, 2021. 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. Meneses, an established smuggler and a Contra supporter as well, taught Blandn how to smuggle and provided him with cocaine. [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.
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