Bavaria
JF-Expert Member
- Jun 14, 2011
- 53,102
- 53,357
Nimetoka kuangalia movie based on a true story inaitwa Kill the messenger. Hii muvie inamuelezea jamaa mmoja anaitwa gary webb aliezaliwa mwaka 1955 nakazi yake kubwa ni investigative journalism.
Kati ya kazi kubwa aliyoifanya huyu jamaa ni kuchunguza uhusika wa CIA kwenye biashara ya madawa ya kulevya na kuwasaidia waasi wa huko Nicaragua kuanzia miaka ya 1995 hadi 1998. Habari ile ilitokea kutikisa sana marekani hasa CIA.
Swali ninalijiuliza je, tanzania kuna waandishi wa habari wa aina hii?? Wanamisimamo kama huyu jamaa?? Je vyombo vyetu vya usalama vina weledi wa kuwajibika wanapokosolewa au maovu yao kuwekwa hadharani??
Stori zaidi mnaweza kuipata hapa chini:
Gary Webb
Gary Stephen Webb (August 31, 1955 – December 10, 2004) was an American investigative reporter. He began his career on papers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards and establishing a reputation for outstanding investigative writing. Hired by the San Jose Mercury News, Webb contributed to the paper's Pulitzer-prize winning coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake.
Webb is best known for his "Dark Alliance" series, which appeared in the Mercury News in 1996. The series examined the origins of the crack-cocaine trade in Los Angeles and claimed that members of the anti-government Contra rebels in Nicaragua had played a major role in the trade, using cocaine profits to support their struggle. It also suggested that they may have acted with the knowledge and protection of the CIA. The series provoked outrage in Los Angeles, particularly in the African-American community, and led to four major investigations of the series' charges.
The series became even more controversial when the Los Angeles Times and other major papers published articles suggesting its claims were overstated. After an internal review, the Mercury News ultimately published a statement in May 1997 acknowledging shortcomings in the series' reporting and editing. Webb resigned from the Mercury News in December 1997. He became an investigator for the California State Legislature, publishing a book based on the "Dark Alliance" series in 1998, and doing free-lance investigative reporting. Webb committed suicide in 2004.
In the aftermath of the controversy, critics complained that Webb had been unfairly made to bear the burden of the series' failures, while editorial errors and failures in oversight had been ignored.
Criticism also fell on the reporting of the Los Angeles Times and other papers, as having over-emphasized problems in the series claims instead of examining the questions the series raised. Many of Webb's supporters, while acknowledging errors in the series, also believe that the findings of the investigations vindicate Webb's basic claims.
Early life
Webb was born in Corona, California, the first of two children in his family. Webb's father was a Marine sergeant, and the family moved frequently, as his career took him to new assignments. When Webb's father retired from the Marines, the family settled in a suburb of Indianapolis, where Webb and his brother attended high school.
After high school, Webb attended an Indianapolis community college on a scholarship until his family moved to Cincinnati. He then transferred to nearby Northern Kentucky University.
Webb first began writing on the student newspaper at his college in Indianapolis. After transferring to Northern Kentucky, Webb entered its journalism program and wrote for the school paper, the Northerner.
Although he attended Northern Kentucky four years, he did not finish his degree. Instead, he found work in 1978 as a reporter at the Kentucky Post, a local paper affiliated with the larger Cincinnati Post. In 1979, Webb married Susan Bell and the two eventually had three children.
Early career
Webb's first major investigative work appeared in 1980, when the Post published "The Coal Connection," a seventeen part series by Webb and Post reporter Thomas Scheffey.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.
In 1983, Webb moved to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where he continued doing investigative work. A 1985 series, "Doctoring the Truth," uncovered problems in the State Medical Board. It led to an Ohio House investigation which resulted in major revisions to the state Medical Practice Act. Webb then moved to the paper's statehouse bureau where he covered state-wide issues, winning numerous regional journalism awards.
Webb moved to the San Jose Mercury News in 1988 and was assigned to its Sacramento bureau, where he wrote about corruption and incompetence in state politics. In a story written with colleague Pete Carey, Webb examined the reasons for the collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The Mercury News coverage of the earthquake and its aftermath won the entire staff the Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting in 1990.
Dark Alliance series
Webb began researching "Dark Alliance" in July 1995. The series was published in the Mercury News in three parts, from August 18-20, 1996, with one long article and one to two shorter articles appearing each day.
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. The website logo showed the silhouette of a man smoking a crack pipe superimposed over the CIA seal. This proved highly controversial and the Mercury News later changed it.
Series claims
The lead 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."
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."
To show this, the series focused on three men: Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandon, and Norwin Meneses. Ross was a major drug dealer in Los Angeles, Blandon and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. After introducing the three, the first article discussed primarily Blandon and Meneses, and their relationship with the Contras and the CIA.
Much of the article highlighted the failure of law enforcement agencies to successfully prosecute them, and suggested that this was largely due to their Contra and CIA connections. The second article described Blandon's background and how he began smuggling cocaine to support the Contras.
Meneses, an established smuggler and a Contra supporter as well, taught Blandon how to smuggle and provided him with cocaine. When Ricky Ross discovered the market for crack in Los Angeles, he began buying cocaine from Blandon. Blandon and Meneses' high volume supply of low-priced cocaine "allowed Ross to sew up the Los Angeles market and move on. In city after city, local dealers either bought from Ross or got left behind."
The third article discussed the social effects of the crack trade, noting that it had a disparate effect on African-Americans. Asking why crack became so prevalent in the black community of Los Angeles, the article credited Blandon, "the Johnny Appleseed of crack in California."
It also found disparities in the treatment of black and white traffickers in the justice system, contrasting the treatment of Blandon and Ross after their arrests for drug trafficking. Because Blandon cooperated with the DEA, he spent only 28 months in prison, became a paid government informer, and received permanent resident status.
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 the help of Blandon. The article suggested this was in retribution for Ross's testimony in the corruption case.
Response to the series
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. Other papers were slow to pick up the story, but African-Americans quickly took note, especially in South-Central Los Angeles where the dealers discussed in the series had been active.
They responded with outrage to the series' charges. California senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein also took note and wrote to CIA director John Deutch and Attorney General Janet Reno, asking for investigations into the stories. Maxine Waters, the Representative for California's 35th district, which includes South-Central Los Angeles, was also outraged by the stories and became one of Webb's strongest supporters. Waters urged the CIA, the Department of Justice, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to all investigate.
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.
Webb's continuing reporting also triggered a fourth investigation. The first article in "Dark Alliance" that discussed the failure of law enforcement agencies to prosecute Blandon and Meneses had mentioned several cases. One of these was a 1986 raid on Blandon's drug organization by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.
The article suggested that the raid had produced evidence of CIA ties to drug smuggling, which was later suppressed. When Webb wrote another story on the raid evidence in early October, it received wide attention in Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department began its own investigation into the "Dark Alliance" claims.
Coverage in other papers
After the announcement of investigations into the claims made in the series, other newspapers began investigating the story and several papers ultimately published articles suggesting the series' claims were overstated. The first detailed article on the series' claims appeared in the Washington Post in early October.
The front page article, by reporters Roberto Suro and Walter Pincus, found that "available information" did not support the series claims, and that "the rise of crack" was "a broad-based phenomenon" driven in numerous places by diverse players. The article also discussed Webb's contacts with Ricky Ross's attorney, and prosecution complaints of how Ross's defense had used Webb's series.
The New York Times published two articles on the series in mid-October, both written by reporter Tim Golden. The first article dealt mostly with the response of the Los Angeles black community to the stories, describing the series' evidence as "thin." Golden also noted the controversy over Webb's contacts with Ross's lawyer.
The second article, citing interviews with current and former intelligence and law-enforcement officials, questioned the importance of the drug dealers discussed in the series, both in the crack cocaine trade, and in supporting the Nicaraguan Contras fight against the Sandinista government.
The Los Angeles Times devoted the most space to the story, developing its own three part series called "The Cocaine Trail." The series ran from October 20-22 1996, and was researched by a team of 17 reporters. The three articles in the series were written by four reporters: Jesse Katz, Doyle McManus, and John Mitchell and Sam Fulwood.
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. 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.
McManus found Blandon's and Meneses' contributions to Contra organizations significantly less than the "millions" claimed in the series, and no evidence that the CIA had tried to protect them. The third article, by Mitchell and Fulwood, covered the effects of crack on African-Americans, and how it affected their reaction to some of the rumors that arose after the "Dark Alliance" series.
Mercury News response
Surprised by the Washington Post article, Mercury News executive editor Jerry Ceppos wrote to the Post defending the series.[SUP][33][/SUP] The Post ultimately refused to print his letter. Ceppos also asked reporter Pete Carey to write a critique of the series for publication in the Mercury News, and had the controversial website logo changed.
Carey's critique appeared in mid-October and went through several of the Post criticisms of the series, including the importance of Blandon's drug ring in spreading crack, questions about Blandon's testimony in court, and how specific series allegations about CIA involvement had been, giving Webb's responses.
When the Los Angeles Times series appeared, Ceppos again wrote to defend the original series. He also defended the series in interviews with all three papers. The extent of the criticism, however, convinced Ceppos that the Mercury News had to acknowledge to its readers that the series had been subjected to strong criticism[SUP]. [/SUP]He did this in a column that appeared on November 3rd, defending the series, but also committing the paper to a review of major criticisms.
Ceppos's column drew editorial responses from both the New York Times and Washington Post. 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.
The Post response came from the paper's ombudsman, Geneva Overholser. 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." But while calling the flaws in the series "unforgivably careless journalism,"
Overholser also criticized the Post's refusal to print Ceppos's letter defending the series, and sharply criticized the Post's coverage of the story. 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."
In contrast, the series received support from Steve Weinberg, a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. In a long review of series claims in the Baltimore Sun, Weinberg said: "I think the critics have been far too harsh. Despite some hyped phrasing, "Dark Alliance" appears to be praiseworthy investigative reporting."
Soon after the initial appearance of the series, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists had voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. 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.
Webb's resignation
Webb's last follow up to "Dark Alliance" appeared on December 31, 1996. Although he had developed more stories after a recent trip to Costa Rica, Mercury News was still concerned that problems in the series itself had not yet been addressed and did not publish the new stories. In March 1997, Mercury News executive editor Jerry Ceppos told Webb that the paper was going to address the readers about his series.
On May 11, 1997, Ceppos published a column describing the series as an "important work" and "solidly documented" but criticized it on four grounds: reliance on one interpretation of complicated, sometimes-conflicting pieces of evidence; failing to estimate the amount of money involved; oversimplifying the crack epidemic;
and creating impressions that were open to misinterpretation through imprecise language and graphics. Offered a choice between working in San Jose under editorial supervision or spot reporting in Cupertino, Webb chose Cupertino, 150 miles from his home. Because of the long commute he quit the paper in December 1997.
Federal investigation results
The reports of the three federal investigations into the claims of "Dark Alliance" were not released until over a year after the series' publication. The reports rejected the series' main claims, but were critical of some CIA and law enforcement actions.
Justice Department report
The Department of Justice Inspector-General's report was released on July 23, 1998. According to the report's "Epilogue," the report was completed in December 1997, but was not released because the DEA was still attempting to use Danilo Blandon in an investigation of international drug dealers, and was concerned that the report would affect the viability of the investigation. When Attorney General Janet Reno determined that a delay was no longer necessary, the report was released unchanged.
The report covered actions by Department of Justice employees in the FBI, DEA, INS, and U.S. attorneys offices. It found that "the allegations contained in the original Mercury News articles were exaggerations of the actual facts." After examining the investigations and prosecutions of the main figures in the series, Blandon, Meneses, Ross, it concluded:
"Although the investigations suffered from various problems of communication and coordination, their successes and failures were determined by the normal dynamics that affect the success of scores of investigations of high-level drug traffickers … These factors, rather than anything as spectacular as a systematic effort by the CIA or any other intelligence agency to protect the drug trafficking activities of Contra supporters, determined what occurred in the cases we examined."
It also concluded that "the claims that Blandon and Meneses were responsible for introducing crack cocaine into South Central Los Angeles and spreading the crack epidemic throughout the country were unsupported." 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."
The report called several of its findings "troubling." It found that Blandon received permanent resident status "in a wholly improper manner," and that for some time the Department "was not certain whether to prosecute Meneses, or use him as a cooperating witness." Regarding issues raised in the series' 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. It concluded, however, that these problems were "a far cry from the type of broad manipulation and corruption of the federal criminal justice system suggested by the original allegations."
CIA report
The CIA Inspector-General's report was issued in two volumes. 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. 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.
According to the report, the Inspector-General's office (OIG) had looked for any information the agency had "relating to CIA knowledge of drug trafficking allegation in regard to any person directly or indirectly involved in Contra activities," and for agency information regarding "how CIA handled and responded to information regarding allegations of drug trafficking" by people involved in Contra activities or support.In addition to reviewing agency files, the OIG also interviewed "individuals who possessed potentially relevant information."
The first volume of the report found no evidence that "any past or present employee of CIA, or anyone acting on behalf of CIA, had any direct or indirect dealing" with Ross, Blandon, or Meneses, or that any of the other figures mentioned in "Dark Alliance" were ever employed by or associated with or contacted by the agency.
It found nothing to support the claim that "the drug trafficking activities of Blandon and Meneses were motivated by any commitment to support the Contra cause or Contra activities undertaken by CIA." It noted that Blandon 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.
It found no information to support the claim that the agency interfered with law enforcement actions against Ross, Blandon or Meneses.
House committee report
The last report to be released was from the House Intelligence Committee. The report was published in February, 2000.
Dark Alliance book
Main article: Dark Alliance After his resignation from the Mercury News, Webb expanded the "Dark Alliance" series into a book which responded to the criticism of the series, and described his experiences writing the story and dealing with the controversy. It was published as Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.[SUP][50][/SUP] in 1998. A revised version was published in 1999 which incorporated Webb's response to the federal investigation reports.
Webb's later views
In interviews after leaving the Mercury News, Webb described the 1997 controversy as media manipulation. "The government side of the story is coming through the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post", he stated. "They use the giant corporate press rather than saying anything directly.
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." Webb's longest response to the controversy was in "The Mighty Wurlitzer Plays On", a chapter Webb contributed to an award-winning anthology of press criticism:
After leaving the Mercury News, Webb worked as an investigator for the California State Legislature. 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.
While working at the Legislature, Webb continued to do free-lance investigative reporting, sometimes based on his investigative work, such as an article on racial profiling in traffic stops which appeared in Esquire magazine in April 1999.
Webb later moved to the Legislature's Office of Majority Services. He was laid off in February 2004 when Assembly Member Fabian Núñez was elected Speaker. In August 2004 he joined the Sacramento News & Review, an alternative weekly newspaper, where he continued doing investigative writing. One of his last articles examined America's Army, a video game designed by the U.S. Army.
Gary Webb committed suicide on December 10, 2004. He was found dead in his Carmichael home with two gunshot wounds to the head. After a local paper reported that he had died from multiple gunshots, the Sacramento County coroner's office received so many calls asking about Webb's death that Sacramento County Coroner Robert Lyons issued a statement confirming Webb had committed suicide.
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." News coverage noted that there were widespread rumors on the internet at the time that Webb had been killed as retribution for his 'Dark Alliance' series, published eight years before, but Webb's former wife Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had committed suicide.
"The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," Bell said. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage.
In April 2011, a collection of his writing outside of the Dark Alliance series was published, entitled The Killing Game: Selected Stories from the Author of Dark Alliance. The collection was edited by Webb's son, Eric Webb.
Views on Webb's reporting
After Webb's death, mainstream news organizations, such as the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, reversed course and defended his "Dark Alliance" series. Esquire wrote that a report from the CIA inspector general "subsequently confirmed the pillars of Webb's findings."
In 2006 the Los Angeles Times published The Truth in `Dark Alliance,' written by Nick Schou, in which L.A. Times Managing Editor Leo Wolinsky is quoted saying "in some ways, Gary got too much blame ... He did exactly what you expect from a great investigative reporter."
The article surveys mainstream reporting at the time of Webb's pieces and states that while Webb had committed "hyperbole" and included some unproven allegations, articles by The New York Times "didn't include the success he achieved or the wrongs he righted – and they were considerable" according to Walt Bogdanich, now a New York Times editor, who had known Webb earlier.
The LA Times piece criticizes its own portrayal of Webb-"we dropped the ball"-and notes that "spurred on by Webb's story, 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" and concludes that "History will tell if Webb receives the credit he's due for prodding the CIA to acknowledge its shameful collaboration with drug dealers. Meanwhile, the journalistic establishment is only beginning to recognize that the controversy over 'Dark Alliance' had more to do with poor editing than bad reporting [on Webb's part]".
Writing in 2005 in the Chicago Tribune, about "the Dangers of Questioning Government Actions", Don Wycliff, the Tribune's public editor, wrote, "I still think Gary Webb had it mostly right. I think he got the treatment that always comes to those who dare question aloud the bona fides of the establishment:
First he got misrepresented-his suggestion that the CIA tolerated the Contras' cocaine trading became an allegation that the agency itself was involved in the drug trade. Then he was ridiculed as a conspiracy-monger."
Nick Schou, a journalist who wrote a biography of Webb, Kill the Messenger, believes that Webb's reportage was eventually vindicated.
The total of the Los Angeles Times reportage criticizing the Dark Alliance exceeded the length of the Dark Alliance itself, and the publication used anonymous intelligence officials as sources. The Los Angeles Times criticized the assertion that the CIA intentionally tried to addict African-Americans on crack cocaine, an assertion the Webb articles never made. Shelby Coffey III, the main editor of the Los Angeles Times, had assigned 17 reporters to expose any errors in Webb's story.
Robert Parry wrote that the Post's denunciation of Webb was ironic, because the paper "had long pooh-poohed earlier allegations that the Contras were implicated in drug shipments" but now "the newspaper was finally accepting the reality of Contra cocaine trafficking, albeit in a backhanded way."
Other support for Webb's reporting was more mixed. The Nation magazine contributor David Corn wrote, "t is only because of Webb that US citizens have 'confirmation from the CIA' that it partnered up with suspected drug traffickers in the just-say-no years and that the Reagan Administration, consumed with a desire to overthrow the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, allied itself with drug thugs." However, Corn also criticized Webb for overstating his case and for not proving "his more cinematic allegations."
Continuing debate
In October 2014, a movie based on Webb's life was released. The movie Kill the Messenger was based on Nick Schou's 2006 Webb biography of the same name, and has prompted more discussion of both Webb and his work. Much of the discussion of Webb's work on "Dark Alliance" this time around has been positive, but some still have mixed views.
Scott Herhold, Webb's first editor at the Mercury-News, wrote in a column: "Gary Webb was a journalist of outsized talent. Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. When he was engaged, he worked hard. He wrote well. But Webb had one huge blind side:
He was fundamentally a man of passion, not of fairness. When facts didn't fit his theory, he tended to shove them to the sidelines." Herhold concluded, "He was no villain ... He was no hero either. Take it from someone who knew him well."[SUP][67][/SUP]
Source: Wikipedia
Kati ya kazi kubwa aliyoifanya huyu jamaa ni kuchunguza uhusika wa CIA kwenye biashara ya madawa ya kulevya na kuwasaidia waasi wa huko Nicaragua kuanzia miaka ya 1995 hadi 1998. Habari ile ilitokea kutikisa sana marekani hasa CIA.
Swali ninalijiuliza je, tanzania kuna waandishi wa habari wa aina hii?? Wanamisimamo kama huyu jamaa?? Je vyombo vyetu vya usalama vina weledi wa kuwajibika wanapokosolewa au maovu yao kuwekwa hadharani??
Stori zaidi mnaweza kuipata hapa chini:
Gary Webb
| Gary Webb | |
|---|---|
| |
| Born | Gary Stephen Webb August 31, 1955 Corona, California, U.S. |
| Died | December 10, 2004 (aged 49) Carmichael, California, U.S. |
| Cause of death | suicide |
| Education | Northern Kentucky University |
| Occupation | investigative reporter |
| Years active | 1980–2004 |
| Notable credit(s) | Cleveland Plain Dealer San Jose Mercury News |
| Spouse(s) | Susan Bell |
| Children | 3 |
Gary Stephen Webb (August 31, 1955 – December 10, 2004) was an American investigative reporter. He began his career on papers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards and establishing a reputation for outstanding investigative writing. Hired by the San Jose Mercury News, Webb contributed to the paper's Pulitzer-prize winning coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake.
Webb is best known for his "Dark Alliance" series, which appeared in the Mercury News in 1996. The series examined the origins of the crack-cocaine trade in Los Angeles and claimed that members of the anti-government Contra rebels in Nicaragua had played a major role in the trade, using cocaine profits to support their struggle. It also suggested that they may have acted with the knowledge and protection of the CIA. The series provoked outrage in Los Angeles, particularly in the African-American community, and led to four major investigations of the series' charges.
The series became even more controversial when the Los Angeles Times and other major papers published articles suggesting its claims were overstated. After an internal review, the Mercury News ultimately published a statement in May 1997 acknowledging shortcomings in the series' reporting and editing. Webb resigned from the Mercury News in December 1997. He became an investigator for the California State Legislature, publishing a book based on the "Dark Alliance" series in 1998, and doing free-lance investigative reporting. Webb committed suicide in 2004.
In the aftermath of the controversy, critics complained that Webb had been unfairly made to bear the burden of the series' failures, while editorial errors and failures in oversight had been ignored.
Criticism also fell on the reporting of the Los Angeles Times and other papers, as having over-emphasized problems in the series claims instead of examining the questions the series raised. Many of Webb's supporters, while acknowledging errors in the series, also believe that the findings of the investigations vindicate Webb's basic claims.
Early life
Webb was born in Corona, California, the first of two children in his family. Webb's father was a Marine sergeant, and the family moved frequently, as his career took him to new assignments. When Webb's father retired from the Marines, the family settled in a suburb of Indianapolis, where Webb and his brother attended high school.
After high school, Webb attended an Indianapolis community college on a scholarship until his family moved to Cincinnati. He then transferred to nearby Northern Kentucky University.
Webb first began writing on the student newspaper at his college in Indianapolis. After transferring to Northern Kentucky, Webb entered its journalism program and wrote for the school paper, the Northerner.
Although he attended Northern Kentucky four years, he did not finish his degree. Instead, he found work in 1978 as a reporter at the Kentucky Post, a local paper affiliated with the larger Cincinnati Post. In 1979, Webb married Susan Bell and the two eventually had three children.
Early career
Webb's first major investigative work appeared in 1980, when the Post published "The Coal Connection," a seventeen part series by Webb and Post reporter Thomas Scheffey.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.
In 1983, Webb moved to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where he continued doing investigative work. A 1985 series, "Doctoring the Truth," uncovered problems in the State Medical Board. It led to an Ohio House investigation which resulted in major revisions to the state Medical Practice Act. Webb then moved to the paper's statehouse bureau where he covered state-wide issues, winning numerous regional journalism awards.
Webb moved to the San Jose Mercury News in 1988 and was assigned to its Sacramento bureau, where he wrote about corruption and incompetence in state politics. In a story written with colleague Pete Carey, Webb examined the reasons for the collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The Mercury News coverage of the earthquake and its aftermath won the entire staff the Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting in 1990.
Dark Alliance series
Webb began researching "Dark Alliance" in July 1995. The series was published in the Mercury News in three parts, from August 18-20, 1996, with one long article and one to two shorter articles appearing each day.
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. The website logo showed the silhouette of a man smoking a crack pipe superimposed over the CIA seal. This proved highly controversial and the Mercury News later changed it.
Series claims
The lead 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."
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."
To show this, the series focused on three men: Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandon, and Norwin Meneses. Ross was a major drug dealer in Los Angeles, Blandon and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. After introducing the three, the first article discussed primarily Blandon and Meneses, and their relationship with the Contras and the CIA.
Much of the article highlighted the failure of law enforcement agencies to successfully prosecute them, and suggested that this was largely due to their Contra and CIA connections. The second article described Blandon's background and how he began smuggling cocaine to support the Contras.
Meneses, an established smuggler and a Contra supporter as well, taught Blandon how to smuggle and provided him with cocaine. When Ricky Ross discovered the market for crack in Los Angeles, he began buying cocaine from Blandon. Blandon and Meneses' high volume supply of low-priced cocaine "allowed Ross to sew up the Los Angeles market and move on. In city after city, local dealers either bought from Ross or got left behind."
The third article discussed the social effects of the crack trade, noting that it had a disparate effect on African-Americans. Asking why crack became so prevalent in the black community of Los Angeles, the article credited Blandon, "the Johnny Appleseed of crack in California."
It also found disparities in the treatment of black and white traffickers in the justice system, contrasting the treatment of Blandon and Ross after their arrests for drug trafficking. Because Blandon cooperated with the DEA, he spent only 28 months in prison, became a paid government informer, and received permanent resident status.
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 the help of Blandon. The article suggested this was in retribution for Ross's testimony in the corruption case.
Response to the series
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. Other papers were slow to pick up the story, but African-Americans quickly took note, especially in South-Central Los Angeles where the dealers discussed in the series had been active.
They responded with outrage to the series' charges. California senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein also took note and wrote to CIA director John Deutch and Attorney General Janet Reno, asking for investigations into the stories. Maxine Waters, the Representative for California's 35th district, which includes South-Central Los Angeles, was also outraged by the stories and became one of Webb's strongest supporters. Waters urged the CIA, the Department of Justice, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to all investigate.
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.
Webb's continuing reporting also triggered a fourth investigation. The first article in "Dark Alliance" that discussed the failure of law enforcement agencies to prosecute Blandon and Meneses had mentioned several cases. One of these was a 1986 raid on Blandon's drug organization by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.
The article suggested that the raid had produced evidence of CIA ties to drug smuggling, which was later suppressed. When Webb wrote another story on the raid evidence in early October, it received wide attention in Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department began its own investigation into the "Dark Alliance" claims.
Coverage in other papers
After the announcement of investigations into the claims made in the series, other newspapers began investigating the story and several papers ultimately published articles suggesting the series' claims were overstated. The first detailed article on the series' claims appeared in the Washington Post in early October.
The front page article, by reporters Roberto Suro and Walter Pincus, found that "available information" did not support the series claims, and that "the rise of crack" was "a broad-based phenomenon" driven in numerous places by diverse players. The article also discussed Webb's contacts with Ricky Ross's attorney, and prosecution complaints of how Ross's defense had used Webb's series.
The New York Times published two articles on the series in mid-October, both written by reporter Tim Golden. The first article dealt mostly with the response of the Los Angeles black community to the stories, describing the series' evidence as "thin." Golden also noted the controversy over Webb's contacts with Ross's lawyer.
The second article, citing interviews with current and former intelligence and law-enforcement officials, questioned the importance of the drug dealers discussed in the series, both in the crack cocaine trade, and in supporting the Nicaraguan Contras fight against the Sandinista government.
The Los Angeles Times devoted the most space to the story, developing its own three part series called "The Cocaine Trail." The series ran from October 20-22 1996, and was researched by a team of 17 reporters. The three articles in the series were written by four reporters: Jesse Katz, Doyle McManus, and John Mitchell and Sam Fulwood.
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. 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.
McManus found Blandon's and Meneses' contributions to Contra organizations significantly less than the "millions" claimed in the series, and no evidence that the CIA had tried to protect them. The third article, by Mitchell and Fulwood, covered the effects of crack on African-Americans, and how it affected their reaction to some of the rumors that arose after the "Dark Alliance" series.
Mercury News response
Surprised by the Washington Post article, Mercury News executive editor Jerry Ceppos wrote to the Post defending the series.[SUP][33][/SUP] The Post ultimately refused to print his letter. Ceppos also asked reporter Pete Carey to write a critique of the series for publication in the Mercury News, and had the controversial website logo changed.
Carey's critique appeared in mid-October and went through several of the Post criticisms of the series, including the importance of Blandon's drug ring in spreading crack, questions about Blandon's testimony in court, and how specific series allegations about CIA involvement had been, giving Webb's responses.
When the Los Angeles Times series appeared, Ceppos again wrote to defend the original series. He also defended the series in interviews with all three papers. The extent of the criticism, however, convinced Ceppos that the Mercury News had to acknowledge to its readers that the series had been subjected to strong criticism[SUP]. [/SUP]He did this in a column that appeared on November 3rd, defending the series, but also committing the paper to a review of major criticisms.
Ceppos's column drew editorial responses from both the New York Times and Washington Post. 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.
The Post response came from the paper's ombudsman, Geneva Overholser. 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." But while calling the flaws in the series "unforgivably careless journalism,"
Overholser also criticized the Post's refusal to print Ceppos's letter defending the series, and sharply criticized the Post's coverage of the story. 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."
In contrast, the series received support from Steve Weinberg, a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. In a long review of series claims in the Baltimore Sun, Weinberg said: "I think the critics have been far too harsh. Despite some hyped phrasing, "Dark Alliance" appears to be praiseworthy investigative reporting."
Soon after the initial appearance of the series, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists had voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. 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.
Webb's resignation
Webb's last follow up to "Dark Alliance" appeared on December 31, 1996. Although he had developed more stories after a recent trip to Costa Rica, Mercury News was still concerned that problems in the series itself had not yet been addressed and did not publish the new stories. In March 1997, Mercury News executive editor Jerry Ceppos told Webb that the paper was going to address the readers about his series.
On May 11, 1997, Ceppos published a column describing the series as an "important work" and "solidly documented" but criticized it on four grounds: reliance on one interpretation of complicated, sometimes-conflicting pieces of evidence; failing to estimate the amount of money involved; oversimplifying the crack epidemic;
and creating impressions that were open to misinterpretation through imprecise language and graphics. Offered a choice between working in San Jose under editorial supervision or spot reporting in Cupertino, Webb chose Cupertino, 150 miles from his home. Because of the long commute he quit the paper in December 1997.
Federal investigation results
The reports of the three federal investigations into the claims of "Dark Alliance" were not released until over a year after the series' publication. The reports rejected the series' main claims, but were critical of some CIA and law enforcement actions.
Justice Department report
The Department of Justice Inspector-General's report was released on July 23, 1998. According to the report's "Epilogue," the report was completed in December 1997, but was not released because the DEA was still attempting to use Danilo Blandon in an investigation of international drug dealers, and was concerned that the report would affect the viability of the investigation. When Attorney General Janet Reno determined that a delay was no longer necessary, the report was released unchanged.
The report covered actions by Department of Justice employees in the FBI, DEA, INS, and U.S. attorneys offices. It found that "the allegations contained in the original Mercury News articles were exaggerations of the actual facts." After examining the investigations and prosecutions of the main figures in the series, Blandon, Meneses, Ross, it concluded:
"Although the investigations suffered from various problems of communication and coordination, their successes and failures were determined by the normal dynamics that affect the success of scores of investigations of high-level drug traffickers … These factors, rather than anything as spectacular as a systematic effort by the CIA or any other intelligence agency to protect the drug trafficking activities of Contra supporters, determined what occurred in the cases we examined."
It also concluded that "the claims that Blandon and Meneses were responsible for introducing crack cocaine into South Central Los Angeles and spreading the crack epidemic throughout the country were unsupported." 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."
The report called several of its findings "troubling." It found that Blandon received permanent resident status "in a wholly improper manner," and that for some time the Department "was not certain whether to prosecute Meneses, or use him as a cooperating witness." Regarding issues raised in the series' 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. It concluded, however, that these problems were "a far cry from the type of broad manipulation and corruption of the federal criminal justice system suggested by the original allegations."
CIA report
The CIA Inspector-General's report was issued in two volumes. 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. 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.
According to the report, the Inspector-General's office (OIG) had looked for any information the agency had "relating to CIA knowledge of drug trafficking allegation in regard to any person directly or indirectly involved in Contra activities," and for agency information regarding "how CIA handled and responded to information regarding allegations of drug trafficking" by people involved in Contra activities or support.In addition to reviewing agency files, the OIG also interviewed "individuals who possessed potentially relevant information."
The first volume of the report found no evidence that "any past or present employee of CIA, or anyone acting on behalf of CIA, had any direct or indirect dealing" with Ross, Blandon, or Meneses, or that any of the other figures mentioned in "Dark Alliance" were ever employed by or associated with or contacted by the agency.
It found nothing to support the claim that "the drug trafficking activities of Blandon and Meneses were motivated by any commitment to support the Contra cause or Contra activities undertaken by CIA." It noted that Blandon 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.
It found no information to support the claim that the agency interfered with law enforcement actions against Ross, Blandon or Meneses.
House committee report
The last report to be released was from the House Intelligence Committee. The report was published in February, 2000.
Dark Alliance book
Main article: Dark Alliance After his resignation from the Mercury News, Webb expanded the "Dark Alliance" series into a book which responded to the criticism of the series, and described his experiences writing the story and dealing with the controversy. It was published as Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.[SUP][50][/SUP] in 1998. A revised version was published in 1999 which incorporated Webb's response to the federal investigation reports.
Webb's later views
In interviews after leaving the Mercury News, Webb described the 1997 controversy as media manipulation. "The government side of the story is coming through the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post", he stated. "They use the giant corporate press rather than saying anything directly.
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." Webb's longest response to the controversy was in "The Mighty Wurlitzer Plays On", a chapter Webb contributed to an award-winning anthology of press criticism:
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. The reason I'd enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn't been, as I'd assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job ... The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress ...
Later career and death- Gary Webb
After leaving the Mercury News, Webb worked as an investigator for the California State Legislature. 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.
While working at the Legislature, Webb continued to do free-lance investigative reporting, sometimes based on his investigative work, such as an article on racial profiling in traffic stops which appeared in Esquire magazine in April 1999.
Webb later moved to the Legislature's Office of Majority Services. He was laid off in February 2004 when Assembly Member Fabian Núñez was elected Speaker. In August 2004 he joined the Sacramento News & Review, an alternative weekly newspaper, where he continued doing investigative writing. One of his last articles examined America's Army, a video game designed by the U.S. Army.
Gary Webb committed suicide on December 10, 2004. He was found dead in his Carmichael home with two gunshot wounds to the head. After a local paper reported that he had died from multiple gunshots, the Sacramento County coroner's office received so many calls asking about Webb's death that Sacramento County Coroner Robert Lyons issued a statement confirming Webb had committed suicide.
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." News coverage noted that there were widespread rumors on the internet at the time that Webb had been killed as retribution for his 'Dark Alliance' series, published eight years before, but Webb's former wife Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had committed suicide.
"The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," Bell said. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage.
In April 2011, a collection of his writing outside of the Dark Alliance series was published, entitled The Killing Game: Selected Stories from the Author of Dark Alliance. The collection was edited by Webb's son, Eric Webb.
Views on Webb's reporting
After Webb's death, mainstream news organizations, such as the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, reversed course and defended his "Dark Alliance" series. Esquire wrote that a report from the CIA inspector general "subsequently confirmed the pillars of Webb's findings."
In 2006 the Los Angeles Times published The Truth in `Dark Alliance,' written by Nick Schou, in which L.A. Times Managing Editor Leo Wolinsky is quoted saying "in some ways, Gary got too much blame ... He did exactly what you expect from a great investigative reporter."
The article surveys mainstream reporting at the time of Webb's pieces and states that while Webb had committed "hyperbole" and included some unproven allegations, articles by The New York Times "didn't include the success he achieved or the wrongs he righted – and they were considerable" according to Walt Bogdanich, now a New York Times editor, who had known Webb earlier.
The LA Times piece criticizes its own portrayal of Webb-"we dropped the ball"-and notes that "spurred on by Webb's story, 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" and concludes that "History will tell if Webb receives the credit he's due for prodding the CIA to acknowledge its shameful collaboration with drug dealers. Meanwhile, the journalistic establishment is only beginning to recognize that the controversy over 'Dark Alliance' had more to do with poor editing than bad reporting [on Webb's part]".
Writing in 2005 in the Chicago Tribune, about "the Dangers of Questioning Government Actions", Don Wycliff, the Tribune's public editor, wrote, "I still think Gary Webb had it mostly right. I think he got the treatment that always comes to those who dare question aloud the bona fides of the establishment:
First he got misrepresented-his suggestion that the CIA tolerated the Contras' cocaine trading became an allegation that the agency itself was involved in the drug trade. Then he was ridiculed as a conspiracy-monger."
Nick Schou, a journalist who wrote a biography of Webb, Kill the Messenger, believes that Webb's reportage was eventually vindicated.
The total of the Los Angeles Times reportage criticizing the Dark Alliance exceeded the length of the Dark Alliance itself, and the publication used anonymous intelligence officials as sources. The Los Angeles Times criticized the assertion that the CIA intentionally tried to addict African-Americans on crack cocaine, an assertion the Webb articles never made. Shelby Coffey III, the main editor of the Los Angeles Times, had assigned 17 reporters to expose any errors in Webb's story.
Robert Parry wrote that the Post's denunciation of Webb was ironic, because the paper "had long pooh-poohed earlier allegations that the Contras were implicated in drug shipments" but now "the newspaper was finally accepting the reality of Contra cocaine trafficking, albeit in a backhanded way."
Other support for Webb's reporting was more mixed. The Nation magazine contributor David Corn wrote, "t is only because of Webb that US citizens have 'confirmation from the CIA' that it partnered up with suspected drug traffickers in the just-say-no years and that the Reagan Administration, consumed with a desire to overthrow the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, allied itself with drug thugs." However, Corn also criticized Webb for overstating his case and for not proving "his more cinematic allegations."
Continuing debate
In October 2014, a movie based on Webb's life was released. The movie Kill the Messenger was based on Nick Schou's 2006 Webb biography of the same name, and has prompted more discussion of both Webb and his work. Much of the discussion of Webb's work on "Dark Alliance" this time around has been positive, but some still have mixed views.
Scott Herhold, Webb's first editor at the Mercury-News, wrote in a column: "Gary Webb was a journalist of outsized talent. Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. When he was engaged, he worked hard. He wrote well. But Webb had one huge blind side:
He was fundamentally a man of passion, not of fairness. When facts didn't fit his theory, he tended to shove them to the sidelines." Herhold concluded, "He was no villain ... He was no hero either. Take it from someone who knew him well."[SUP][67][/SUP]
Source: Wikipedia
