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Carey ultimately decided that there were problems with several parts of the story and wrote a draft article incorporating his findings. "He was crying. Gary Webb became, quite unfairly, the victim of one of the most extraordinary examples of piling on by the mainstream press, ever.". [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. 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. Gary Webb passed away on March 2, 2019. Dark Alliance: Gary Webb, Christian Rummel: 9781522694397: Amazon.com "Back then. [32], The New York Times published two articles on the series in mid-October, both written by reporter Tim Golden. And he finallyyou know, they finally left the country. 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. [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. Garry Webb wrote the 1996 "Dark Alliance" series for the San Jose. [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. }. [7] After transferring to Northern Kentucky, he entered its journalism program and wrote for the school paper, The Northerner. Blandn and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. When Gary originally broke this mind blowing story, the arrogant authority's assumed they could simply ignore him and hope he'd go away. The claim that the drug ring of Meneses-Blandn-Ross sparked the "crack explosion" has been perhaps the most criticized part of the series. "He told the guys with him he was fine," she recalls, "got back on the bike, then passed out, half an hour later. Gary Hays Webb, 78, passed away on Monday May 9, 2022, at ThedaCare Regional Medical Center, Neenah. [60], The House Intelligence Committee issued its report in February 2000. 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. It would have been our 25th wedding anniversary," Bell recalls. By a fortunate coincidence of timing, the report was released on a day when the Monica Lewinsky scandal dominated every front page in the country. Sue remarried two years ago. In addition, Gary left multiple suicide notes to family members which were confirmed to be in his own hand by them. "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". Family (1) How the Press and the CIA Killed Gary Webb's Career Tiffany L Gary-Webb | School of Public Health Gary Webb famously died of two gun shot wounds to the head and his death that was ruled a suicide, is the common sense notion that this was clearly assassination true? margin-bottom: 20px; I first heard about Webb eight years ago, I tell Bell, from the Paris-based journalist Paul Moreira. Susan Bell: a shameful secret history - The Independent } If the antagonism of competing publications was predictable, what happened to Webb within his own newspaper was not. 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 . Like the CIA and Justice Department reports, it also found that neither Blandn, Meneses, nor Ross were associated with the CIA. "That's right," says Blum. So, how much is Gary Webb worth at the age of 49 years old? The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department began its own investigation into the "Dark Alliance" claims.[30]. 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. Age 43 years. "Because of Gary Webb's work," said Senator John Kerry, "the CIA launched an investigation that found dozens of connections to drug runners. 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. Webb became a staff reporter for the San Jose Mercury News in 1988. 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 told me, not long before he died, that he didn't want to get up in the mornings," she says. There were no offers. "People told me that," she says. The first detailed article on the series's claims appeared in The Washington Post in early October. Should these editors subsequently deem the story to have been fatally flawed, they take the consequences. When Webb's body was discovered last December, Bell says, this last item had been dumped in the trash. "Gary was 18 and I was 16 when we first met and started dating in Indianapolis," said Sue Stokes. "I think Kerry learnt a lesson from all this," reporter Robert Parry says. "I believe that Americans, as a nation, are mainly concerned with living their happy little lives. that the "federal government bore some responsibility, however indirect, for the flood of crack that coursed through black neighborhoods in the 1980s"). While working at the legislature, Webb continued to do freelance investigative reporting, sometimes based on his investigative work. By the autumn of 1997, on medication for clinical depression, he was given leave of absence from the paper. Gary Webb's Death Confirmed as Suicide | Editor and Publisher His career ended, his livelihood was destroyed and certain games were started to be . Webb's pieces were not dealing with nameless peasants slaughtered in some distant republic, but demonstrated a clear link between the CIA and the suppliers of the gangs delivering crack to the ghetto of Watts, in South Central Los Angeles. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. Bell and her children helped Webb prepare 50 packages containing cuttings and his CV which they sent out to newspapers all over the US. He was preceded in death by his wife, Melody Webb; parents and three brothers, Albert, Duane and Ronald. "They use the giant corporate press rather than saying anything directly. So, this is not something you really make a career out of, nor would you want to. But the tragedy had a deeper meaning. "Looking back," she says, "I think Gary had been obsessed with suicide for some time. 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. "The second bullet," adds Bell, who has worked for more than 20 years in the area of respiratory therapy, "struck his carotid artery. The story they printed was just awful. Garcia is deputy director of the John S Knight Fellowships in Journalism at Stanford University. Shortly before I left for Sacramento, Moreira, who knew Webb, had shown me unbroadcast footage which shows the French reporter making a phone call to a media commentator in the US, asking him about Webb's death. American racer Cooper Webb is married to his wife named Mariah Williams Webb. Webb, a Pullitzer prize winning journalist, exposed CIA drug trafficking operations in a series of books and reports for the San Jose Mercury News. Both Gary's ex-wife Susan and his brother Kurt viewed the body and they confirmed the location of the wounds to me when I met them. Begun 1996, the divorce and battle over cash of Grammy winner Jimmy Webb age 75, father of six, wed 22 years to Patsy, 64, daughter of late actor Barry Sullivan is getting longer. 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. It was accurate. He died by suicide on December 10, 2004. We had been here before." His. 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. At the end of March, Ceppos told Webb that he was going to present the internal review findings in a column. After introducing the three, the first article discussed primarily Blandn and Meneses, and their relationship with the Contras and the CIA. [73], On the other hand, many of the writers and editors who worked with him have had high praise for him. "It was like someone had made a terrible noise, or a terrible smell, in a small room," recalls Jonathan Winer, Kerry's chief senate staff investigator . One time he called me and he said: 'I have this plan that will benefit us both.' Part of what makes OConnors article so compelling are the candid thoughts of Webbs former wife Sue Stokes. Osborn, Barbara Bliss (MarchApril 1998). "I told Gary not to go near this story," his source replies, in an emotional voice. When he was engaged, he worked hard. Even 10 years after his tragic death, the media refuse to let him rest. After the series's publication, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. Ricky Ross (drug trafficker) - Wikipedia The third article discussed the social effects of the crack trade, noting that it had a disparate effect on African-Americans. Gary Webb's son on new movie "Kill the Messenger" - YouTube Webb, Gary Gary T. Webb, age 67, of Hamilton, Michigan, passed away peacefully surrounded by his loving family Thursday, November 11, 2021. Blandn and Meneses' high-volume supply of low-priced high-purity cocaine "allowed Ross to sew up the Los Angeles market and move on. Tomac is used to good feelings when it comes to Daytona. 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. I mean - please.". "Gary didn't take her seriously," says Susan Bell, "because he was always getting calls alleging weird stuff about the CIA. 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. He began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a strong reputation for investigative writing. 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. 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. In 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb was found dead from an apparent suicide, as Democracy Now! The reports rejected the series's main claims but were critical of some CIA and law enforcement actions. "[38], Surprised by The Washington Post article, The Mercury News's executive editor Jerome Ceppos wrote to the Post defending the series. He died on December 10, 2004 in Carmichael, California, USA. Born January 3rd, 1943 in Montreal, Quebec, he was the son of the late John Douglas Webb and the late Jeannie (Penny) Hardie Penman. Webb is best known for his "Dark Alliance" series, which appeared in The Mercury News in 1996. "I think the behaviour of the media in all of this has been amazing," says Bell. According to Schou, the investigation "confirmed key chunks of Webb's allegations." Actor Jeremy Renner portrays Webb.[83]. She and Gary were married from 1979 to 2000 and had three children. .article-native-ad strong { His series of articles - which prompted the distinguished reporter and former Newsweek Washington correspondent Robert Parry to describe Webb as "an American hero" - incited fury among the African-American community, many of whom took his investigation as proof that the White House saw crack as a way of bringing genocide to the ghetto. His victory in the event last year gave him . The story offered no evidence to support such sweeping conclusions, a fatal error that would ultimately destroy Webb, if not his editors. In interviews after leaving The Mercury News, Webb described the 1997 controversy as media manipulation. 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. Ross, currently serving life, was already infamous; he had been profiled in the LA Times in December 1994, by writer Jesse Katz, at a time when Ross was at liberty and in penitent mood. Gary Webb's "Dark Alliance" Returns to the Internet - Narco News padding-bottom: 20px; "They tried to make us look like crazies," says Blum. The Warning in Gary Webb's Death - Consortium News Every year since investigative journalist Gary Webb took his own life in 2004, I have marked the anniversary of that sad event by recalling the debt that American history owes to Webb for his. His erstwhile editors on the Mercury News, meanwhile, saw their careers thrive. Kill the Messenger review - what really happened to Gary Webb "Do you think that a part of him did this out of revenge?" Attorneys' Offices. Contemporary discussions of the series are discussed in the section on, Webb 2011, "Caltrans Ignored Elevated Freeway Safety. "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. 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 . He is from United States. 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. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70]. ", In contrast, the series received support from Steve Weinberg, a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. 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. And yet, for all his Easy Rider tendencies, he was also a dedicated family man with an extraordinary appetite for researching minutiae. In 1997 Ceppos was awarded the US Society of Professional Journalists' National Ethics Award. Within weeks, the site was attracting up to 1.3m hits per day. 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. I remain astounded by the editorial decisions they made.". We are in the living room of Bell's house just outside Sacramento, California. ", 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. "He definitely was depressed. On one road trip, in 2001, he came off the motorcycle and split his helmet open. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. The article resulted in a lawsuit against Webb's paper which the plaintiffs won. He was born August 27, 1968 in Saginaw, Michigan to Taylor Jr. and Loretta Webb. A secret deal allowed drugs to go unreported by the DCI. Gary Webb's "Approach Split" in the atrium of 20 Triton Street London. Dr. Gary A. Webb, MD | Marco Island, FL | Geriatrician | US News Doctors He crashed and shredded his clothes, face and body on a barbed-wire fence." 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.. [39] The Post refused to print his letter. The article discussed Webb's contacts with Ross's attorney and prosecution complaints of how Ross's defense had used Webb's series. What was new about Webb's reports, published under the title "Dark Alliance" in the Californian paper the San Jose Mercury News, was that for the first time it brought the story back home. Poor Gary Webb. Gary Webb, friends say, was a far more combative character than either the Mercury News's executive editor Ceppos or page editor Garcia. 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. In February, Gary Webb gave his ex-wife. Ross was a major drug dealer in Los Angeles. 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 . He was so depressed. OR was he like Epstein? He also defended the series in interviews with all three papers. Gary Webb Obituary (2009) - Elgin, IL - Elgin Courier News - Legacy.com I felt she really trashed me. '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. He was previously married to Sue Bell.

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