Tragic Career of Investigative Journalist Gary Webb Reveals Much About Deep Flaws in U.S. Journalism

Interview with Jeff Cohen, columnist and media critic, conducted by Scott Harris

Investigative journalist Gary Webb, whose controversial series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News documenting the link between cocaine trafficking in the U.S. and the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contra Army, was found dead in his Sacramento, Calif. home on Dec. 10. Police say the reporter had committed suicide.

Webb's 1996 articles asserted that the CIA-supported rebel army financed itself through the drug trade, leading to a crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles during the 1980s. The series of articles were among the first to be widely circulated on the Internet, which sparked anger in African American communities across the country and a demand for congressional hearings. However, Webb's Contra-cocaine articles were refuted by government officials and aggressively attacked by some of the nation's most prominent newspapers. Eventually, the San Jose Mercury News withdrew its support from Webb and reassigned him to a satellite bureau. Webb quit in 1997 and wrote a book about his investigation titled, "Dark Alliance, The CIA, the Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion," published in 1999.

An internal investigation into the charges conducted by the CIA's inspector general in 1998 corroborated much of what Webb had reported and confirmed that the agency had been made aware of the Contra's drug trafficking activities. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with columnist and media critic Jeff Cohen, who reflects on Gary Webb's career, and how this reporter's tragic story reveals much about the crisis in U.S. journalism today.

Jeff Cohen is founder of the media watch group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Read his article, "R.I.P. Gary Webb -- Unembedded Reporter," online at www.jeffcohen.org

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