"He had six in a short period of time." "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". When Attorney General Janet Reno determined that a delay was no longer necessary, the report was released unaltered. His victory in the event last year gave him . Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? His father was a Marine sergeant, and the family moved frequently, as his career took him to new assignments. [65], Within "The Mighty Wurlitzer Plays On" essay Webb stated he believed there was an active "collusion between the press and the powerful" to report freely on inconsequential matters, "but when it comes to the real down and dirty stuff We begin to see the limits of our freedoms". If he could have chosen his own epitaph, it might have been a line from the letter he posted to Bell, immediately before he killed himself: "I do not regret," Webb told her, "anything that I have written." Taken during the London Open House 2014 event. Webb followed up Baca's leads at the California State Library, examining Congressional records and FBI reports. 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. ", "After Gary died," she says, "a reporter from the LA Times came here. Gary Stephen Webb(August 31, 1955 - December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. "Looking back," she says, "I think Gary had been obsessed with suicide for some time. On the last day Webb was alive, his motorbike broke down while he was moving to his mother's house. "You sound very scared," Moreira remarks. 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. 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. Then, in August the same year, the first of three instalments of "Dark Alliance" appeared. Then, on 10 December, he resigned. The drugs went to South Central LA. 3) The series oversimplified how the crack epidemic grew. in Central America", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gary_Webb&oldid=1138520387, This page was last edited on 10 February 2023, at 03:36. Nick Schou, a journalist who wrote a 2006 biography of Webb, has claimed that this was the most important error in the series. Gary Webb was born in Corona, California, in 1955. In 1986, Webb wrote an article saying that the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, Frank D. Celebrezze accepted contributions from groups with organized crime connections. He concluded, "How did these shortcomings occur? 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. A January 1997 article in American Journalism Review noted that a 1994 series Webb wrote had also been the subject of a Mercury News internal review that criticized Webb's reporting. In 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb was found dead from an apparent suicide, as Democracy Now! . He was born June 18, 1943, in Appleton, son of the late Wilford and Helen (Hauskey) Webb. Lynn Rd, Ranger WV - Rehold Address Directory The CIA/MSM Contra-Cocaine Cover-up - Consortium News How Kill the Messenger Will Vindicate Investigative Journalist Gary Webb Gary Webb Obituary (1944 - 2022) - Portland, OR - The Oregonian Shortly before his death, his motorcycle had been stolen (it was recovered by his family after his death). Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. Gary is survived by his wife of 48 years, Beverly Webb; children Margaret . But "Dark Alliance" was also posted on the Mercury News's website, with the image of a crack smoker superimposed on the CIA badge. This did not happen in Webb's case. 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. Susan Bell: a shameful secret history - The Independent According to Schou, the investigation "confirmed key chunks of Webb's allegations." "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 . Tomac is used to good feelings when it comes to Daytona. "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. padding:0!important; The response from the American press took two months to arrive. Gary Webb was a journalist of outsized talent. At that time, Webb (pictured) was best known for the controversial three-part CIA 1996 expose he wrote the San Jose Mercury News called "Dark Alliance: The Story Behind the . 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. When he was engaged, he worked hard. But Webb had one huge blind side: He was fundamentally a man of passion, not of fairness. Webb's series was published on the Mercury News's fledgling website, but it wasn't exactly an instant sensation. Gary Hays (304) 778-7090: I believe that we fell short at every step of our process: in the writing, editing and production of our work. But the biggest loss he had was the writing. Webb's ex wife, Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide. We had this huge team of people at the L.A. Times and kind of piled on to one lone muckraker up in Northern California." The CIA admits used the media to ruin his career. The Open Mic: A Few Words with Cinematographer Ian Webb Gary Webb FRCPC Obituary (1943 - 2021) - Legacy Remembers 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. 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. "Gary Webb was left to fend for himself. He kept saying that he would never get another job in journalism.". 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? 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 . In February last year he was laid off by the State Legislature. [66] "Do not quote me. line-height:1.5; 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. OR was he like Epstein? The story had little immediate impact. Eli Tomac on track during Media Day at Daytona International Speedway, Friday, March 3, 2023. 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. Gary Webb: Murdered For Exposing The Truth - A New Kind Of Human 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. He told me: 'If I can't do what I want to do, what's the point?' Gary Webb, friends say, was a far more combative character than either the Mercury News's executive editor Ceppos or page editor Garcia. [37], In 2013, Jesse Katz, a former Los Angeles Times reporter, said of the newspaper's coverage "As an L.A. Times reporter, we saw this series in the San Jose Mercury News and kind of wonder[ed] how legit it was and kind of put it under a microscope, and we did it in a way that most of us who were involved in it, I think, would look back on that and say it was overkill. 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. 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. When Webb's body was discovered last December, Bell says, this last item had been dumped in the trash. 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 Gary Webb was born on August 31, 1955 in Corona, California, USA. 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. Webb had become, as somebody put it, "radioactive". Gary Webb - Wikispooks The three articles in the series were written by four reporters: Jesse Katz, Doyle McManus, John Mitchell and Sam Fulwood. Gary Webb's family says his death was Suicide. OR was he like Epstein [17] The Mercury News's coverage of the earthquake won its staff the Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting in 1990. The couple got married recently in November of 2020 after dating for some time. It found that CIA officials ignored information about possible Contra drug dealing; that they continued to work with Contra supporters despite allegations that they were trafficking drugs, and further asserted that officials from the CIA instructed Drug Enforcement Agency officers to refrain from investigating alleged dealers connected with the Contras. 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 "I think the behaviour of the media in all of this has been amazing," says Bell. Tiffany L Gary-Webb | School of Public Health The second article described Blandn's background and how he began smuggling cocaine to support the Contras. Gary Webb (304) 778-2546: Jamie Webb (304) 778-2546: Status: Homeowner. He began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a strong reputation for investigative writing. The series examined the origins of the crack cocaine trade in Los Angeles and claimed that members of the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua had played a major role in creating the trade, using cocaine profits to finance their fight against the government in Nicaragua. It also stated that the Contras may have acted with the knowledge and protection of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). "He rang me up that day. Gary Webb was at his desk in the Mercury News's Sacramento office, in July 1995, when he received a message to call Coral Baca, a Hispanic woman from the San Francisco Bay area, allegedly connected to a Colombian drug cartel. I ask Bell. With Baca's encouragement, he started to investigate a large-scale Nicaraguan cocaine dealer named Oscar Danilo Blandn. [81], Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at George Washington University's National Security Archives, also does not agree that the report vindicated the series. He said: 'No. 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. 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. 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. He was sentenced to life in prison, though the sentence was shortened on appeal and Ross was released in 2009. He was assigned to its Sacramento bureau, where he was allowed to choose most of his own stories. It would have been our 25th wedding anniversary," Bell recalls. It was truthful. Gary Webb, Into the Buzzsaw, CH 13, Prometheus Books. And yet, for all his Easy Rider tendencies, he was also a dedicated family man with an extraordinary appetite for researching minutiae. By the late spring of 1996, Webb was ready to publish. [69], Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. "He definitely was depressed. Join iconic brands and world-class marketing leaders at Brandweek to unlock powerful insights and impact-driven strategies. It was accurate. 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. Osborn, Barbara Bliss (MarchApril 1998). Gary is survived by his loving wife of 41 years, Barbara; their son, Jeff; his nephew, Christopher (Stephanie) Webb; niece, Sara (Gary) Dugan; and . He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage.[71]. [18], Webb began researching "Dark Alliance" in July 1995. It was good that his story forced those reports to come out, but part of what made that happen was based on misleading information. 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. "I believe that Americans, as a nation, are mainly concerned with living their happy little lives. The February 2000 report by the House Intelligence Committee in turn considered the book's claims as well as the series' claims. The article suggested this was in retribution for Ross' testimony in the corruption case. Instead, he found work in 1978 as a reporter at the Kentucky Post, a local paper affiliated with the larger Cincinnati Post. He crashed and shredded his clothes, face and body on a barbed-wire fence." [49], The paper also gave Webb permission to visit Central America again to get more evidence supporting the story. WRITTEN IN PAIN - Los Angeles Times The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. Baca claimed that a drug dealer with close links to the CIA had framed her boyfriend, who was also in the cocaine business. Work with a bunch of drug dealers to run guns? On Dec. 9, 2004, the 49-year-old Webb typed out suicide notes to his ex-wife and his three children; laid out a certificate for his cremation; and taped a note on the door telling movers, who were . Gary Webb passed away on March 2, 2019. 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. 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. [71] "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. The Tragic 2004 Death Of Investigative Journalist, Gary Webb "Look at what happened to Gary Webb. His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner's office. 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. Regarding issues raised in the series's shorter sidebar stories, it found that some in the government were "not eager" to have DEA agent Celerino Castillo "openly probe" activities at Ilopango Airport in El Salvador, where covert operations in support of the Contras were undertaken, and that the CIA had indeed intervened in a case involving smuggler Julio Zavala. We are in the living room of Bell's house just outside Sacramento, California. [56] He resigned from the paper in November 1997. Should these editors subsequently deem the story to have been fatally flawed, they take the consequences. To show this, the series focused on three men: Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandn, and Norwin Meneses. "Allow Gary Webb to be there [in the CIA investigation]," a heckler shouts. For instance, he published an article on racial profiling in traffic stops in Esquire magazine, in April 1999. [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." But as his ex-wife told the . [3], Webb was born in Corona, California.