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That was just the way he was.". Gary Webb FRCPC Obituary (1943 - 2021) - Legacy Remembers Ricky Ross (drug trafficker) - Wikipedia .article-native-ad { Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. There was no coffin, casket or tombstone. 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. 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? [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 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. "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 . [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 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. Their explosive report, which appeared in 1989, was either ignored, or marginalised, by the American press. that the "federal government bore some responsibility, however indirect, for the flood of crack that coursed through black neighborhoods in the 1980s"). Then, in August the same year, the first of three instalments of "Dark Alliance" appeared. 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". [45], The Post's response came from the paper's ombudsman, Geneva Overholser. That wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been willing to stand up and risk it all.". According to the report, the Inspector-General's office (OIG) examined all information the agency had "relating to CIA knowledge of drug trafficking allegations in regard to any person directly or indirectly involved in Contra activities." The first article in "Dark Alliance" that discussed the failure of law enforcement agencies to prosecute Blandn and Meneses had mentioned several cases. The review was conducted primarily by editor Jonathan Krim and reporter Pete Carey, who had written the paper's first published analysis of the series. Osborn, Barbara Bliss (MarchApril 1998). Poor Gary Webb. In an unprecedented move, the then CIA director John Deutch was dispatched to address community leaders in the Watts district of LA. One of his last articles examined America's Army, a video game designed by the U.S. But as his ex-wife told the . Garry Webb wrote the 1996 "Dark Alliance" series for the San Jose. When he was engaged, he worked hard. For two years, Blum and Kerry supervised the interrogation of dozens of witnesses who described CIA-related drug deals in central America. In 1996, the award-winning journalist Gary Webb uncovered CIA links to Los Angeles drug dealers. In 1997 Ceppos was awarded the US Society of Professional Journalists' National Ethics Award. Eighteen Years Ago Today, Journalist Gary Webb Was Murdered After In 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb was found dead from an apparent suicide, as Democracy Now! 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. 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. One instalment of the LA Times's 18,000-word rebuttal of Webb's piece, published in October 1996, sought to minimise the importance of his key witness, Ricky Ross. Blandn and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. Gary Webb - Wikipedia [6], Webb first began writing for the student newspaper at his college in Indianapolis. He was born at Emmanuel Hospital in. Snowfall is an American crime drama television series set in Los Angeles in 1983. Bell and her children helped Webb prepare 50 packages containing cuttings and his CV which they sent out to newspapers all over the US. [3], Webb was born in Corona, California. 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. In August of 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb broke the biggest story of his life. 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. Gary Webb Obituary (2011) - Saginaw, MI - Saginaw News on MLive.com "[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. And he finallyyou know, they finally left the country. My wife has kept me grounded for . "[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]. 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, 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. By: E&P Staff The death of investigative reporter Gary Webb has been confirmed as a suicide, according to a coroner's statement. Webb took a modestly paid, low-profile job as an investigator with the California State Legislature. E&P Staff. 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". "You sound very scared," Moreira remarks. 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. To show this, the series focused on three men: Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandn, and Norwin Meneses. The link between drug-running and the Reagan regime's support for the right-wing terrorist group throughout the 1980s had been public knowledge for over a decade. It was an amazing scoop - but one that would ruin his career and drive him to suicide. A series of expose articles in the San Jose Mercury-News by reporter Gary Webb told tales of a drug triangle during the 1980s that linked CIA officials in Central America, a San Francisco drug . The third article discussed the social effects of the crack trade, noting that it had a disparate effect on African-Americans. And yet, for all his Easy Rider tendencies, he was also a dedicated family man with an extraordinary appetite for researching minutiae. 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. 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. 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. A flood of inquiries about Gary Webb's shooting death prompts statement. Am J Mens Health, 2018 Mar 1:1557988318758788. doi: 10.1177/1557988318758788. [62], Examining the support that Meneses and Blandn gave to the local Contra organization in San Francisco, the report concluded that it was "not sufficient to finance the organization" and did not consist of "millions," contrary to the claims of the "Dark Alliance" series. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. Webb is best known for his "Dark Alliance" series, which appeared in The Mercury News in 1996. Who Is Gary Webb's Wife? The three articles in the series were written by four reporters: Jesse Katz, Doyle McManus, John Mitchell and Sam Fulwood. ", Many of these are in the series archive at. A revised version was published in 1999 that incorporated Webb's response to the CIA and Justice Department reports. The story was picked up by black talk-radio stations. .article-native-ad svg { An investigative journalist, Webb became interested in the covert activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. ", 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. 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. According to Schou, the investigation "confirmed key chunks of Webb's allegations." By the late spring of 1996, Webb was ready to publish. Susan Bell: a shameful secret history - The Independent . And when he got something in his head, he was determined to do it. 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. And "we really didn't do anything to advance his work or illuminate much to the story, and it was a really kind of tawdry exercise. Gary Webb Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth, Family The Death of Gary Webb - Beyond Chron Age 43 years. Why bring up old white people atrocities against black people now? (Strawser) Webb. Obituary | GARY HAYS WEBB of Neenah, Wisconsin | WESTGOR FUNERAL HOMES 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. "The second bullet," adds Bell, who has worked for more than 20 years in the area of respiratory therapy, "struck his carotid artery. [18], Webb began researching "Dark Alliance" in July 1995. 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. I felt weak and distressed; the whole thing was so fresh. "I believe that Americans, as a nation, are mainly concerned with living their happy little lives. This did not happen in Webb's case. Webb was an assertive figure who drove fast cars and powerful motorcycles, hung heavy metal posters in his office and, at certain times in his life, smoked a fair amount of cannabis. There is a CIA connection and I can demonstrate it.'". Many writers discussing the series point to errors in it. By the autumn of 1997, on medication for clinical depression, he was given leave of absence from the paper. He was a former member of Bethlehem . Webb followed up Baca's leads at the California State Library, examining Congressional records and FBI reports. She was a homemaker and a member of Hunters Chapel Baptist Church. What he found, he wrote later, "nearly knocked me off my chair". After Webb's death, a collection of his stories from before and after the "Dark Alliance" series was published. 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. [5], After high school, Webb attended an Indianapolis community college on a scholarship until his family moved to Cincinnati. I felt she really trashed me. Ceppos and Garcia have long since lost any taste for public discussion of "Dark Alliance". GARY WEBB OBITUARY Gary Frank Webb Sept. 27, 1944 - Oct. 23, 2022 Gary passed away peacefully of complications following cardiovascular surgery. The series ran from October 2022, 1996, and was researched by a team of 17 reporters. Evidence Begins To Indicate Gary Webb Was Murdered - BSNEWS Webb's series was published on the Mercury News's fledgling website, but it wasn't exactly an instant sensation. Unable to get work from any major US newspaper, he spent the four months before his death writing for * a free-sheet covering the Sacramento area. 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. 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. 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. [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. 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". It also examined "how CIA handled and responded to information regarding allegations of drug trafficking" by people involved in Contra activities or support. 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. Parry, the first reporter to write about the US authorities' drug-running on behalf of the Contras, had survived a campaign by the White House to discredit first his story, then his reputation. 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.. During and immediately after the controversy over "Dark Alliance," Webb's earlier writing was examined closely. "[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."