He then transferred to nearby Northern Kentucky University. "[77], Webb's reporting in "Dark Alliance" remains controversial. Webb disagreed with this conclusion.[1][2]. [61] According to the report, it used Webb's reporting and writing as "key resources in focusing and refining the investigation." 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. [3], Webb was born in Corona, California. GARY WEBB was an investigative reporter who focused on government and private sector corruption and who won more than thirty journalism awards. There were no offers. Gary Webb - Biography - IMDb Return of the messenger: How Jeremy Renner's new film Kill The [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". "It sounds crazy," says Bell, "but having his motorbike stolen was the last straw. Gary Webb's "Dark Alliance" Returns to the Internet - Narco News Gary Stephen Webb(August 31, 1955 - December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. The CIA/MSM Contra-Cocaine Cover-up - Consortium News Dispelling the Rumors: Gary Webb's Death Confirmed As Suicide Gary Douglas Webb of Radnor, PA, passed away on October 19, 2021 Born January 3rd, 1943 in Montreal, Quebec, he was the son of the late John Douglas Webb and the late Jeannie (Penny) Hardie. The new movie Kill the Messenger, based in part on a 2006 book by a former student of mine, eulogizes Webb . 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. [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. After Ceppos' column, The Mercury News spent the next several months conducting an internal review of the story. He was the much-loved father of Lindsay (Stephen . "He thought I was being cowardly. This support "was not directed by anyone within the Contra movement who had an association with the CIA," and the Committee found "no evidence that the CIA or the Intelligence Community was aware of these individuals support. 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. The article discussed Webb's contacts with Ross's attorney and prosecution complaints of how Ross's defense had used Webb's series. The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department began its own investigation into the "Dark Alliance" claims.[30]. Gary Webb on the CIA's Role in the 1980s LA Crack Epidemic - Citizen Truth In an unprecedented move, the then CIA director John Deutch was dispatched to address community leaders in the Watts district of LA. He died by suicide on December 10, 2004. [71] When asked by local reporters about the possibility of two gunshots being a suicide, Lyons replied "It's unusual in a suicide case to have two shots, but it has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility." Webb worked for several newspapers including The Kentucky Post and Cleveland Plain Dealer. But once the flak really started to fly, from the nation's grandest newspapers, Ceppos - having come under exactly what form of pressure it is difficult to know - printed a retraction which Webb dismissed as spineless. 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. .article-native-ad p { Gary's story, however, is far from over and could never be killed by something as trivial as a material bullet. Gary Webb's family says his death was Suicide. OR was he like Epstein [5], After high school, Webb attended an Indianapolis community college on a scholarship until his family moved to Cincinnati. Both sides were left angry and disappointed. I realise now he was thinking about suicide.". He placed his keys and ID cards on the kitchen table, together with a cremation certificate he had purchased for himself. Born in Corona, California, son of a conservatively minded Marine, he met Bell, whose father was a university lecturer, at high school in Indianapolis. Carey ultimately decided that there were problems with several parts of the story and wrote a draft article incorporating his findings. .article-native-ad strong { Taken during the London Open House 2014 event. Eighteen Years Ago Today, Journalist Gary Webb Was Murdered After [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. 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. Sheriff: Fatal Blue Grass house fire rule 'undetermined, but accidental' 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. Gary Webb was born on August 31, 1955 in Corona, California, USA. She was a homemaker and a member of Hunters Chapel Baptist Church. Corrie had primary biliary cirrhosis, a genetic liver disease that already had. Webb, Gary Gary T. Webb, age 67, of Hamilton, Michigan, passed away peacefully surrounded by his loving family Thursday, November 11, 2021. The film broadened the debate which led to the decriminalisation of . 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. 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 think Kerry learnt a lesson from all this," reporter Robert Parry says. In February last year he was laid off by the State Legislature. She and Gary were married from 1979 to 2000 and had three children. ", The report called several of its findings "troubling." [17] The Mercury News's coverage of the earthquake won its staff the Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting in 1990. Webb strongly disagreed with Ceppos's column and, in interviews, was harshly critical of the paper's handling of the story. The couple got married recently in November of 2020 after dating for some time. "People told me that," she says. 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 truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress. The series revolves around the first crack epidemic and its impact on the culture of the city. 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. 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? [57], The report covered actions by Department of Justice employees in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the DEA, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and U.S. 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 Watkins and Debbie (John) Foutch; grandchildren, Makenzie and Ashlynn Fogg. After his resignation from The Mercury News, Webb expanded the "Dark Alliance" series into a book that responded to the criticism of the series and described his experiences writing the story and dealing with the controversy. 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. Susan Bell: a shameful secret history - The Independent Webb took a modestly paid, low-profile job as an investigator with the California State Legislature. [81], Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at George Washington University's National Security Archives, also does not agree that the report vindicated the series. It also stated that the Contras may have acted with the knowledge and protection of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). I felt she really trashed me. [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. "And to an extent, they succeeded.". "[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. After the series's publication, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. When removal men arrived, on the morning of 10 December 2004, they found a sign on his front door, which read: ''Please do not enter. 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 . .article-native-ad { 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. margin-top: 10px; He wrote well. Gary is survived by his wife of 48 years, Beverly Webb; children Margaret . 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." "They use the giant corporate press rather than saying anything directly. "He was crying. "Do you think that a part of him did this out of revenge?" Gary was preceded in death by his mother and father, Donna and James Webb of Carpentersville. Webb was born in Corona, California. 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 . Newsweek called Kerry a "randy conspiracy buff". So he blew her off. Gary is survived by his loving wife of 41 years, Barbara; their son, Jeff; his nephew, Christopher (Stephanie) Webb; niece, Sara (Gary) Dugan; and . Look at the way the US press reports on Iraq. Gary Webb | Okanogan Valley Gazette-Tribune "He had six in a short period of time." By Sam Stanton Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 15, 2004. . 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. 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.. The Open Mic: A Few Words with Cinematographer Ian Webb ", Many of these are in the series archive at. "Look at what happened to Gary Webb. 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. While working at the legislature, Webb continued to do freelance investigative reporting, sometimes based on his investigative work. Gary Webb (304) 778-2546: Jamie Webb (304) 778-2546: Status: Homeowner. [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. He told me: 'If I can't do what I want to do, what's the point?' "[38], Surprised by The Washington Post article, The Mercury News's executive editor Jerome Ceppos wrote to the Post defending the series. Webb began to shift from cynicism to curiosity. "[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. "[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. Webb, Bell explains, had written four letters explaining what he was about to do - one to her, one to each of their three children - and mailed them immediately before he killed himself. 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. Webb is best known for his "Dark Alliance" series, which appeared in The Mercury News in 1996. Gary Webb Obituary (1944 - 2022) - Portland, OR - The Oregonian The story they printed was just awful. A revised version was published in 1999 that incorporated Webb's response to the CIA and Justice Department reports. How Gary Webb Linked The CIA To The Crack Epidemic - All That's Interesting It sounds like a Tom Clancy novel, right? Gary Webb, friends say, was a far more combative character than either the Mercury News's executive editor Ceppos or page editor Garcia. It was an amazing scoop - but one that would ruin his career and drive him to suicide. She kept crying about how terrible it all was - by which I mean that she was, physically, crying. With hindsight, Bell says, "the signs were there. 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. It's . Ceppos and Garcia have long since lost any taste for public discussion of "Dark Alliance".