OldSpeak

Silence Is Not an Option: The Importance of Gary Webb

By Neal Shaffer
February 01, 2005

In 1996, the San Jose Mercury News carried an explosive series of articles called the ?Dark Alliance? detailing ties between CIA operatives and the Nicaraguan drug trade. It caused quite a stir among the populace, particularly those segments that are inclined to believe the government doesn?t always have their best interests at heart. And as might be expected, the man who reported it?Gary Webb?paid dearly. His career and personal life were ruined by a vicious campaign on the part of the government to discredit him and his story. And on December 10, 2004, four months after he started a new job with the Sacramento News and Review, the clock was punched again. That day, Gary Webb was found dead in his California home of self-inflicted gunshot wounds. He was 49.

Most of us do–and all of us should–accept the fact that our government does dirty things. For the most part, these deeds will never see the light of day, which is probably for the best. Although a fully open government may be the ideal circumstance, it’s safe to say that it wouldn’t last long. Perhaps there are things that it’s actually better we don’t know about. Yet there are lines that should never be crossed, and accountability is, at the very least, a noble theory.

Which is to say that it’s a wholly gray area. What importance should we assign, for example, to the existence (revealed in a January 9th Chicago Tribune article) of a jet whose owner appears to be the CIA and which has been used to transfer prisoners to potentially torture-friendly destinations? Such things are impossible to judge without knowing specifics. And, if the government is involved, we can bank on it that specifics will be elusive. So we depend on the actions of honest people to help us learn what we need to know. We depend on their drive to ferret out the truth for no other reason than that the pursuit itself is worthwhile. It’s just this dependence that makes the story of Gary Webb so important.

Webb’s journalism career began in high school at the height of the Vietnam morass. After he wrote an editorial for his school newspaper that criticized some of the cheerleaders for dressing up in military garb, the response was so powerful–and so negative–that the school demanded he apologize, lest he not be allowed into the journalism society. Webb’s response? That he didn’t want to be let in if he had to apologize to get there.

He would later recall the incident as a tipping point, the moment that set him on a path to his calling. After taking some college courses, he landed a job at the Post in Lexington, Kentucky, by walking in, asking for work and proving himself. From there, it was the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where he built a name as one of the best young reporters around. That reputation earned him his opportunity at the institution which would oversee both his greatest achievement and the destruction of his soul: the Mercury News.

The “Dark Alliance” series represents the pinnacle of Gary Webb’s work as a journalist. Before it ever appeared, however, he had already won a Pulitzer for his work on a series about the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, in addition to a number of less notable journalism awards. His reputation was based on fearless, accurate reporting. He enjoyed the backing of his editors every step of the way and had never been subject to scandal or discredit. Webb, by all accounts, was an outstanding investigative reporter.

It’s a status, though, that apparently only goes so far. Webb had a reputation for taking on crime and corruption, both in the private and public sectors. That’s one thing, but taking on the CIA is quite another. While the publication of the “Dark Alliance” series led to extensive public protests and even an internal CIA review, none of it seemed to matter. What mattered was that Webb had put egg on the faces of people who just don’t take to that sort of thing.

The official government response was swift and strong. That much could be expected, but it was only the start. The real trouble came when the Los Angeles Times–which may or may not have been miffed that their less prestigious neighbor had scooped them in their own backyard–published a story claiming to discredit Webb’s work. The New York Times and the Washington Post weighed in similarly, and the pressure finally became so strong that Webb’s editors backed away. Then they shipped him off to Northern California, as far away from the front lines, and his family, as they could. After years of struggling against the inevitable, Webb was finally forced to resign in something that, publicly, resembled disgrace.

The thing is, to this day nobody has been able to actually refute Webb’s claims. Most of the so-called debunking was based on nothing more than the government’s official denial, coupled with a healthy dose of media cowardice. No one could go point-by-point with Webb’s reporting so they opted instead for a scorched earth policy. Webb had transgressed, so it seems, and needed to be punished. And the very things that defined him as a journalist–the facts–were relegated to detail status. What Webb had said simply couldn’t be true, whether it actually was or not.

Webb’s record following his resignation from the Mercury News was that of a journeyman. He wrote a book based on the “Dark Alliance” series, he worked as an investigator for the California state legislature and he published here and there, most notably in Esquire but also in the alternative press. He had been stripped, though, of his identity. Gary Webb belonged on a newspaper, stretching the limits of the night to research and file stories that simply needed to be told. Told because people need to know.

The reaction to Webb’s death has been as predictable as the reaction to “Dark Alliance.” The Los Angeles Times took time out of its busy schedule to run an obituary, and they were even so kind as to devote much of it to rehashing their original hatchet job. The mainstream press on the whole has followed a similar tack. His death has been either ignored or noted with an asterisk.

The alternative press, however, has been on fire. The internet is ablaze with appreciations and, in almost equal number, conspiracy theories. It’s an understandable reaction. It almost seems too convenient that a man whose life had been ruined by forces more powerful than we want to imagine was found dead a scant four months after finally returning to work. To face the truth about Webb’s passing is a difficult thing. Who wants to believe that a man who gave so much, and did so with such strength, could end his own life?

Webb’s talents were as sharp as ever in the short time he spent at the News and Review. His credits there include two outstanding pieces: one on the military’s use of video games to recruit soldiers and the other on California’s corrupt red light camera system. What’s more, the paper’s staff, based on their public comments, seems deeply shaken and saddened by the loss of a man with whom they clearly considered themselves lucky to work. Despite this, there’s something oddly logical about Webb’s suicide. Although talent like his never disappears, it cannot always be sustained.

Ultimately, Webb’s legacy should have nothing to do with the controversy associated with his life. It should neither be defined by “Dark Alliance” and its aftermath nor by the tragedy of his suicide. No, Webb’s legacy should be defined, as one can imagine he would want it to be, by the sum total of his work. Webb was a journalist and a writer in the purest sense of the terms. The byline was always less important than the story, less important than the response he hoped to engender.

We can give Gary Webb’s life a proper tribute by making sure that the next time someone like him comes along, silence is not an option.

DISCLAIMER: THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN OLDSPEAK ARE NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF THE RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE.