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A revised version was published in 1999 that incorporated Webb's response to the CIA and Justice Department reports. 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. Because Blandn cooperated with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), he spent only 28 months in prison, became a paid government informant, and received permanent resident status. ", The report called several of its findings "troubling." It was good that his story forced those reports to come out, but part of what made that happen was based on misleading information. "To get back at his editors?". The reports rejected the series's main claims but were critical of some CIA and law enforcement actions. [35] The second article, by McManus, was the longest of the series and dealt with the role of the Contras in the drug trade and CIA knowledge of drug activities by the Contras. The story was picked up by black talk-radio stations. 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. 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. [7] After transferring to Northern Kentucky, he entered its journalism program and wrote for the school paper, The Northerner. If the antagonism of competing publications was predictable, what happened to Webb within his own newspaper was not. Webb's reports prompted three official investigations, including one by the CIA itself which - astonishingly for an organisation rarely praised for its transparency - confirmed the substance of his findings (published at length in Webb's 1998 book, also entitled Dark Alliance). According to Schou, the investigation "confirmed key chunks of Webb's allegations." By Sam Stanton Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 15, 2004. . And when he got something in his head, he was determined to do it. [46] Overholser was harshly critical of the series, "reported by a seemingly hotheaded fellow willing to have people leap to conclusions his reporting couldn't back up." 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. Eli Tomac on track during Media Day at Daytona International Speedway, Friday, March 3, 2023. 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? "But Gary thought that if something was true, it should be told. * The agency's response was to try to prevent him from getting his doctorate, then block his advancement in the academic world. His erstwhile editors on the Mercury News, meanwhile, saw their careers thrive. "Gary was given the choice of relocating either to San Jose," says Bell, "or to Cupertino". His career ended, his livelihood was destroyed and certain games were started to be . In the final few months of his life, Bell says, Webb became increasingly withdrawn. [6], Webb first began writing for the student newspaper at his college in Indianapolis. [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. 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. 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. After the series's publication, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. Webb - whose article had never alleged that the CIA deliberately targeted any ethnic group - became a national celebrity. "[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. Depressed, he became increasingly unpredictable in his behaviour and embarked on a series of affairs; he was divorced from Bell in 2000, though he remained close to her throughout his life and lived in a house in nearby Carmichael. 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. 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. After introducing the three, the first article discussed primarily Blandn and Meneses, and their relationship with the Contras and the CIA. Views on Webb's journalism have been polarized. 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]. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70]. 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.' "[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. He really did believe that," she says. [29] Waters urged the CIA, the Department of Justice, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate. Webb's series was published on the Mercury News's fledgling website, but it wasn't exactly an instant sensation. And the importance of exposing them. "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 . He leaves behind the love of his life and adoring wife of 41 years, Anne Michelle Phillips. 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 . Do something else with your life," the voice urges. Emma Lee Webb. Gary Webb (304) 778-2546: Jamie Webb (304) 778-2546: Status: Homeowner. She said the paper wanted to make up for what it had done in the past. 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. 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. 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. So, how much is Gary Webb worth at the age of 49 years old? He also defended the series in interviews with all three papers. Gary is survived by his loving wife of 41 years, Barbara; their son, Jeff; his nephew, Christopher (Stephanie) Webb; niece, Sara (Gary) Dugan; and . It also examined "how CIA handled and responded to information regarding allegations of drug trafficking" by people involved in Contra activities or support. He was the much-loved father of Lindsay (Stephen . In 1996, the award-winning journalist Gary Webb uncovered CIA links to Los Angeles drug dealers. margin-top: 10px; 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. Garry Webb wrote the 1996 "Dark Alliance" series for the San Jose. His victory in the event last year gave him . [16] As part of The Mercury News team that covered the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, Webb and his colleague Pete Carey wrote a story examining the causes of the collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct. "Because of Gary Webb's work," said Senator John Kerry, "the CIA launched an investigation that found dozens of connections to drug runners. "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 sums up the story in his last major interview just days before his death. reports. The series ran from October 2022, 1996, and was researched by a team of 17 reporters. 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. When Webb's body was discovered last December, Bell says, this last item had been dumped in the trash. Celebrezze eventually sued the Plain Dealer and won an undisclosed out of court settlement. [48] Despite the controversy that soon overtook the series, and the request of one board member to reconsider, the branch's board went ahead with the award in November. What he found, he wrote later, "nearly knocked me off my chair". I felt she really trashed me. 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.". ", She pauses: "That said, he did sleep with a gun under his bed.". Although it did find that both men were major drug dealers, "guilty of enriching themselves at the expense of countless drug users," and that they had contributed money to the Contra cause, "we did not find that their activities were responsible for the crack cocaine epidemic in South Central Los Angeles, much less the rise of crack throughout the nation, or that they were a significant source of support for the Contras. His wife is Sue Webb (m. 1979-2000) Gary Webb Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. Gary's family found that old, storied, ("priceless to us," as his ex-wife, Susan Bell, described it to me) CDROM among his possessions. 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. It was accurate. [3], Webb was born in Corona, California. 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. It was an amazing scoop - but one that would ruin his career and drive him to suicide. "[64] Webb's longest response to the controversy was in "The Mighty Wurlitzer Plays On," a chapter he contributed to an anthology of press criticism: .mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, If we had met five years ago, you wouldn't have found a more staunch defender of the newspaper industry than me And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. [45], The Post's response came from the paper's ombudsman, Geneva Overholser. 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. [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. Call 911 for assistance. 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. [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. Her husband began his career on The Kentucky Post, and rapidly proved himself to be the sort of character who can be a secretive agency's worst nightmare: a full-blooded provocateur who liked to put the hours in at the library. But the report was correct. The article resulted in a lawsuit against Webb's paper which the plaintiffs won. Carey ultimately decided that there were problems with several parts of the story and wrote a draft article incorporating his findings. }. Gary Webb passed away on March 2, 2019. "They tried to make us look like crazies," says Blum. [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". 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 She and Gary were married from 1979 to 2000 and had three children. Gary Douglas Webb of Radnor, PA, passed away on October 19, 2021. We're well aware that they/it (the cia) did do it. 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. 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. Gary Webb, (born August 31, 1955, Corona, California, U.S.died December 10, 2004, Carmichael, California), American investigative journalist who wrote a three-part series for the San Jose Mercury News in 1996 on connections between the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the U.S.-backed Contra army seeking to overthrow Nicaragua's leftist Critics view the series' claims as inaccurate or overstated, while supporters point to the results of a later CIA investigation as vindicating the series. Ross was also released early after cooperating in an investigation of police corruption, but was rearrested a few months later in a sting operation arranged with Blandn's help. When it did, beginning with The Washington Post, it shocked Webb's critics as much as his many admirers. I realise now he was thinking about suicide.". The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. "Like enjoy it.". "For the better part of a decade," it began, "a San Francisco drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funnelled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the US Central Intelligence Agency.". Five years ago, a tragedy occurred in American journalism: Investigative reporter Gary Webb - who had been ostracized by his own colleagues for forcing a spotlight back onto an ugly government scandal they wanted to ignore - was driven to commit suicide. American racer Cooper Webb is married to his wife named Mariah Williams Webb. But ultimately, the responsibility was, and is, mine.". Webb came home and put his belongings in order, dropping his Kentucky Post poster in the bin. So, this is not something you really make a career out of, nor would you want to. . Although he attended Northern Kentucky for four years, he did not finish his degree. Webb's ex-wife, Stokes, now remarried and still living in Sacramento, had heard it all before, too. Webb followed up Baca's leads at the California State Library, examining Congressional records and FBI reports. Unfortunately, the railroading of Gary Webb had begun and he was run over. "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". By this stage, he was prepared to work as a jobbing reporter. 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. [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. [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. This is why Webb's "Dark Alliance" series is an essential source, a primary text that every journalism student should study. Gary Webb's "Approach Split" in the atrium of 20 Triton Street London. The response from the American press took two months to arrive. [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. 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. 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. 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 kept saying that he would never get another job in journalism.". By: E&P Staff The death of investigative reporter Gary Webb has been confirmed as a suicide, according to a coroner's statement. 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. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. For instance, he published an article on racial profiling in traffic stops in Esquire magazine, in April 1999. The story had little immediate impact. Last edited on 10 February 2023, at 03:36, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion, CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking, "To readers of our 'Dark Alliance' series", "America's 'crack' plague has roots in Nicaragua war", "War on drugs has unequal impact on black Americans", "Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Inquiry Findings", "The CIA and Crack: Evidence Is Lacking Of Alleged Plot", "Though Evidence Is Thin, Tale of C.I.A. 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. One time he called me and he said: 'I have this plan that will benefit us both.' Join iconic brands and world-class marketing leaders at Brandweek to unlock powerful insights and impact-driven strategies. 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. [44], Ceppos' column drew editorial responses from both The New York Times and The Washington Post. Gary Webb's income source is mostly from being a successful . Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. When he was engaged, he worked hard. He is from United States. 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. The drugs went to South Central LA. Family (1) Gary Webb, 64, Oroville, Wash., died Oct. 30, 2021. 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 sides were left angry and disappointed. According to Corn, Webb "was wrong on some important details, but he was, in a way, closer to the truth than many of his establishment media critics who neglected the story of the real CIA-contra-cocaine connection." To pay off his mounting debts, Webb sold the Carmichael property, where he was living alone, and arranged to move in with his mother. To show this, the series focused on three men: Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandn, and Norwin Meneses. His own paper, the Mercury News, criticized the series in 1997 without providing many specifics. 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." Gary Webb was born on August 31, 1955 in Corona, California, USA. Gary's story, however, is far from over and could never be killed by something as trivial as a material bullet. He crashed and shredded his clothes, face and body on a barbed-wire fence." As a result, some major US newspapers ignored its findings completely, while others relegated a brief summary to their inside pages. border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd; Despite some hyped phrasing, "Dark Alliance" appears to be praiseworthy investigative reporting."[47]. He died on December 10, 2004 in Carmichael, California, USA. 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. By the time Webb began researching Dark Alliance, Bell was 38 and they had three children. Ceppos failed to reply to one phone message and six emails. "I had to warn Gary that what he was looking at was probably true, but that he would run very big risks," Parry recalls. 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. But the tragedy had a deeper meaning. After Ceppos' column, The Mercury News spent the next several months conducting an internal review of the story. 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. Snowfall is an American crime drama television series set in Los Angeles in 1983. As it turned out," she adds, "that was not their intent.". Gary Webb's family says his death was Suicide. Webb may indeed be physically dead, but his research is more alive today than ever before, and continues to haunt the shadow government and snowball into a monster that will undoubtedly have its eventual revenge. He was born at Emmanuel Hospital in. color: #ddd; In interviews after leaving The Mercury News, Webb described the 1997 controversy as media manipulation. 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. Blandn and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. 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. By the autumn of 1997, on medication for clinical depression, he was given leave of absence from the paper. "If I had one dream for you," he wrote, "it was that you would go into journalism and carry on the kind of work I did - fighting, with all your might, the oppression and bigotry and stupidity and greed that surrounds us. But you say - dear God. 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. Within weeks, the site was attracting up to 1.3m hits per day. She was a native of Minden, LA, but a resident of Crossett for 65 years. 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 But they underestimated the paradigm shifting power of the internet, and the intelligence of Webb, who not only listed the explosive story online . [20] The website artwork showed the silhouette of a man smoking a crack pipe superimposed over the CIA seal. In and out of work, he had a reputation for taking risks. GARY WEBB was an investigative reporter who focused on government and private sector corruption and who won more than thirty journalism awards. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. Emma Lee Webb, age 75, of Crossett, AR passed away Monday February 27, 2023, in her home surrounded by her family. Webb's then-wife Sue remembers coming home from the shops and finding her. His father was a Marine sergeant, and the family moved frequently, as his career took him to new assignments. Webb joined the Mercury News in 1988, via the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "I think Kerry learnt a lesson from all this," reporter Robert Parry says. [17] The Mercury News's coverage of the earthquake won its staff the Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting in 1990. Osborn, Barbara Bliss (MarchApril 1998). [14] In 1984, Webb wrote a story titled Driving Off With Profits which claimed that the promoters of a race in Cleveland paid themselves nearly a million dollars from funds that should have gone to the city of Cleveland. Webb's ex wife, Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide. [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. [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. 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. In 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb was found dead from an apparent suicide, as Democracy Now! 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 sounds like a Tom Clancy novel, right? The whole business, I suggested to Blum, has echoes of a classic Alfred Hitchcock plot. "[78], While finding this part of the series unsupported, Schou said that some of the series's claims on CIA involvement are supported, writing that "The CIA conducted an internal investigation that acknowledged in March 1998 that the agency had covered up Contra drug trafficking for more than a decade." When Gary originally broke this mind blowing story, the arrogant authority's assumed they could simply ignore him and hope he'd go away. } Pictured as a teenage fan: Gary Numan with Gemma, his now wife, getting his autograph in 1985 years before they got together Gary was 600,000 in debt, and on the verge of going under in. 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.