that the "federal government bore some responsibility, however indirect, for the flood of crack that coursed through black neighborhoods in the 1980s"). His corpse was discovered on the seventh anniversary of his resignation from the Mercury News. It was truthful. 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 "It says the CIA helped introduce poison into our children. "[79], Writing after Webb's death in 2005, The Nation magazine's former Washington Editor David Corn said that Webb "was on to something but botched part of how he handled it." Gary Webb was born in Corona, California, in 1955. Osborn, Barbara Bliss (MarchApril 1998). 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. "Gary was 18 and I was 16 when we first met and started dating in Indianapolis," said Sue Stokes. Nobody who heads a government agency can let such an allegation stand.". 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. Webb's ex-wife, Sue Bell, discounted theories Tuesday that her husband had been murdered, saying the 49-year-old Webb had been distraught for some time over his inability to get . "[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 also defended the series in interviews with all three papers. We were dismissed as a bunch of nuts." "He started having motorcycle crashes," Bell says. The series provoked outrage, particularly in the Los Angeles African-American community, and led to four major investigations of its charges. 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. 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. That was just the way he was.". Emma Lee Webb, age 75, of Crossett, AR passed away Monday February 27, 2023, in her home surrounded by her family. [21] This artwork proved controversial, and The Mercury News later removed it. The Department of Justice Inspector-General's report was released on July 23, 1998. GARY WEBB OBITUARY Gary Frank Webb Sept. 27, 1944 - Oct. 23, 2022 Gary passed away peacefully of complications following cardiovascular surgery.
Gary Webb and the Iran-Contra-Cocaine Connection | WilderUtopia 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. The passing of Gary ends more than 50 years with his best friend and loving wife, Marilyn J. [6], Webb first began writing for the student newspaper at his college in Indianapolis. E&P Staff. [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. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. 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. "[76] Scott Herhold, Webb's first editor at The Mercury-News, wrote in a 2013 column that "Gary Webb was a journalist of outsized talent. 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. 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". The series revolves around the first crack epidemic and its impact on the culture of the city.
Gary Webb's Death Confirmed as Suicide | Editor and Publisher Attend in Miami or virtually, Sept. 1114. Gary's family found that old, storied, ("priceless to us," as his ex-wife, Susan Bell, described it to me) CDROM among his possessions. With hindsight, Bell says, "the signs were there. ", "Reporter's suicide confirmed by coroner", "Repercussions From Flawed News Articles", "Herhold: Thinking back on journalist Gary Webb and the CIA", Ex-L.A. Times Writer Apologizes for "Tawdry" Attacks, "Gary Webb was no journalism hero, despite what 'Kill the Messenger' says", "Jeremy Renner's 'Kill the Messenger' Gets Fall Release Date", The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy: A Review of the Justice Department's Investigations and Prosecutions, United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, Report of Investigation Concerning Allegations of Connections Between CIA and The Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States, Central Intelligence Agency Office of the Inspector General, United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, "Secrecy, Conspiracy, and the Media During the CIA-Contra Affair", Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography, "Inside the Dark Alliance: Gary Webb on the CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion", 'A NATURAL STORY': Tribute to 'Dark Alliance' and Journalist Gary Webb, San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center, Archive of Gary Webb stories at Sacramento News and Review, "Frontline: Cocaine, Conspiracy Theories & the C.I.A. My wife has kept me grounded for .
Ricky Ross (drug trafficker) - Wikipedia One of his last articles examined America's Army, a video game designed by the U.S. 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? .article-native-ad p { Gary Webb, friends say, was a far more combative character than either the Mercury News's executive editor Ceppos or page editor Garcia. Save 50% with early-bird passes. 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. His. [61] According to the report, it used Webb's reporting and writing as "key resources in focusing and refining the investigation." 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. 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. 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."
When Webb's body was discovered last December, Bell says, this last item had been dumped in the trash.
Gary Webb, 49, Journalist Who Wrote Disputed Articles, Is Dead He placed his keys and ID cards on the kitchen table, together with a cremation certificate he had purchased for himself. In and out of work, he had a reputation for taking risks. 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. Its pointed to as one of the clearer cases of CIA intervention as revenge for Webb revealing damaging secrets about the agencies involvement in drug smuggling. "Gary Webb was left to fend for himself. When he told me, I said it sounded crazy. [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". [18], Webb began researching "Dark Alliance" in July 1995. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later?
Special Reports - Cocaine, Conspiracy Theories And The Cia In - PBS [68], In August 2004, Webb joined the Sacramento News & Review, an alternative weekly newspaper, where he continued doing investigative writing. To show this, the series focused on three men: Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandn, and Norwin Meneses. He was preceded in death by his wife, Melody Webb; parents and three brothers, Albert, Duane and Ronald. 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. WEBB, Mr. Gary Lee, our beloved son, husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle went home with his heavenly Father Monday, August 29, 2011 at University of Michigan Hospital. To Read the Full Story Become an Adweek+ Subscriber.
Gary Webb - Lake Ridge Chapel & Memorial Designers Webb moved his wife and two young children to a suburb and continued a tradition he had started in Cleveland, restoring their small house with the help of how-to books, installing wainscoting and custom tile, new cabinets and gardens, while putting in overtime at the paper. Ceppos and Garcia have long since lost any taste for public discussion of "Dark Alliance". In the final few months of his life, Bell says, Webb became increasingly withdrawn. Webb's ex-wife, Stokes, now remarried and still living in Sacramento, had heard it all before, too. They were outraged by the series's charges.[27]. He was previously married to Sue Bell. I ask Bell. Connie Webb (304) 778-2546: Status: Homeowner. 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. He began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a strong reputation for investigative writing. He was the much-loved father of Lindsay (Stephen .
Gary Webb: Murdered For Exposing The Truth - A New Kind Of Human "I think the behaviour of the media in all of this has been amazing," says Bell. 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. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek.
Susan Bell: a shameful secret history - The Independent "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.". She acted opposite Dirk Bogarde in the groundbreaking film Victim (Basil Dearden, 1961), as the unsuspecting wife of a barrister who is a closet homosexual. [3], Webb was born in Corona, California. 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. Webb came home and put his belongings in order, dropping his Kentucky Post poster in the bin. n 1996, journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of articles under the title "Dark Alliance" for the suggesting a CIA connection between anti-government contras in Nicaragua and monies raised from. Steven Webb . "Because of Gary Webb's work," said Senator John Kerry, "the CIA launched an investigation that found dozens of connections to drug runners. I first heard about Webb eight years ago, I tell Bell, from the Paris-based journalist Paul Moreira. 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. 71K views 8 years ago Gary Webb's son Ian talks about the film in which Jeremy Renner plays his late journalist father. Webb is best known for his "Dark Alliance" series, which appeared in The Mercury News in 1996. "He was crying. By Sam Stanton Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 15, 2004. . [33] Golden also referred to the controversy over Webb's contacts with Ross's lawyer. 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.
The Warning in Gary Webb's Death - Consortium News After the series's publication, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. "As a PhD student, McCoy went to Vietnam and built an absolutely damning case about the CIA's involvement with trafficking heroin. 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. The collection, The Killing Game: Selected Stories from the Author of Dark Alliance, was edited by Webb's son, Eric. There is a CIA connection and I can demonstrate it.'". 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.
Gary Webb Was Right | HuffPost Latest News On one road trip, in 2001, he came off the motorcycle and split his helmet open. 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. By this stage, he was prepared to work as a jobbing reporter. 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. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations.
Dispelling the Rumors: Gary Webb's Death Confirmed As Suicide [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. 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. He was laid off in February 2004 when Assembly Member Fabian Nez was elected Speaker. 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. Gary Hays (304) 778-7090: Garry Webb wrote the 1996 "Dark Alliance" series for the San Jose. "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". Born in Corona, California, son of a conservatively minded Marine, he met Bell, whose father was a university lecturer, at high school in Indianapolis. "Back then. Webb put in a call to Robert Parry. [20] The website artwork showed the silhouette of a man smoking a crack pipe superimposed over the CIA seal.
American Journalism Review - Archives 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. 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. A Celebration of Life will be . 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. 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 .
Gary Webb Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth, Family Attorneys' Offices. Webb, unlike Blum or Kerry, had to face his difficulties alone. This drug ring "opened the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles" and, as a result, "The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America."[23]. I realise now he was thinking about suicide.". It would have been our 25th wedding anniversary," Bell recalls. She said the paper wanted to make up for what it had done in the past. "Look at what happened to Gary Webb. "To get back at his editors?". padding:0!important; Gary Webb's family says his death was Suicide. 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.
Gary Webb - Wikipedia Corrie had primary biliary cirrhosis, a genetic liver disease that already had. "They use the giant corporate press rather than saying anything directly. [17] The Mercury News's coverage of the earthquake won its staff the Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting in 1990. 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. We had been here before." 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. [7] After transferring to Northern Kentucky, he entered its journalism program and wrote for the school paper, The Northerner. It noted that Blandn and Meneses claimed to have donated money to Contra sympathizers in Los Angeles, but found no information to confirm that it was true or that the agency had heard of it. Calling the Post's overall focus "misplaced", Overholser expressed regret that the paper had not taken the opportunity to re-examine whether the CIA had overlooked Contra involvement in drug smuggling, "a subject The Post and the public had given short shrift. They failed because the climate was more sceptical then. [8] In 1979, Webb married Susan Bell; the couple eventually had three children. ", Webb had already been cremated and his ashes scattered in the bay off Santa Cruz two weeks before. By William Kennedy / Jan. 22, 2023 12:00 pm EST. In the six years he worked at its Sacramento office, he won the HL Mencken award, for a story exposing corruption in California's drug enforcement agency, and his Pulitzer prize - won jointly, as part of a Mercury News team covering the 1990 Loma Prieta earthquake. Views on Webb's journalism have been polarized. 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. Webb's continuing reporting also triggered a fourth investigation. 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". The couple got married recently in November of 2020 after dating for some time.
Dark Alliance: Gary Webb, Christian Rummel: 9781522694397: Amazon.com [41], When the Los Angeles Times series appeared, Ceppos again wrote to defend the original series. color: #ddd; That wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been willing to stand up and risk it all.". By the time Webb began researching Dark Alliance, Bell was 38 and they had three children. Even 10 years after his tragic death, the media refuse to let him rest. 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. Part of what makes OConnors article so compelling are the candid thoughts of Webbs former wife Sue Stokes. Webb worked for several newspapers including The Kentucky Post and Cleveland Plain Dealer. He is from United States. He was born Sept.10, 1957 in Willcox, Ariz. to RG Webb and Winnie Mae Shelton. But Ian Webbknows all too well the emotions that come with that experience.
Gary Webb - Spartacus Educational Webb, a Pullitzer prize winning journalist, exposed CIA drug trafficking operations in a series of books and reports for the San Jose Mercury News.
Evidence Begins To Indicate Gary Webb Was Murdered - BSNEWS By the late spring of 1996, Webb was ready to publish. The "Dark Alliance" series remains controversial. 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. For two years, Blum and Kerry supervised the interrogation of dozens of witnesses who described CIA-related drug deals in central America.
Kill the Messenger review - what really happened to Gary Webb