Gary Webb and His Legacy

I happen to be a subscriber to Media Bistro and got a link today to an article in the American Journalism Review about the late Gary Webb.

You may not remember the name but he's the San Jose Mercury News reporter who brought us the story of how the CIA was involved in bringing crack and other lovelies to inner city black neighborhoods both to turn a profit as well as to wipe out whole generations of black males who might otherwise "rise against the man".

Remember that post-Vietnam and post inner city riots, blacks - especially black men - were beginning to organize and do more than gripe. Somehow, however, that activism has gotten lost in communities where a high percentage of the young men are now in prison. Coincidinky? Don't think so. You might have noticed that elsewhere in the last couple of days, we're hearing about the CIA's latest deal with "chartered flights" and "extreme rendition."

Webb's work was attacked by other newspapers who worked very hard to discredit him and insist that the CIA was a very nice, honest, ethical agency (::cough:: right). The Mercury News then dumped him. Webb later died in what was ruled a self-inflicted act of violence, although there have always been some questions about that. I still see and hear people talking about his death and raising those questions. One thing there is not much question about: Webb died of a broken heart although his final wish was that his young son would one day become the kind of journalist he was.

But, as the piece in AJR states, there was a lot of truth in what Webb wrote. One hundred percent accurate, perhaps not, but far more than many have been left to believe. I was glad to see they went back and looked at Webb's work.

It's a worthy read, if you're so inclined.