Newspapers Abandoned the Ex-Star Reporter
Gary Webb, the onetime San Jose Mercury News investigative reporter whose series linking the CIA to the crack cocaine trade sparked controversy after its appearance in 1996, died of two self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head, the Sacramento County Coroner’s office reported Tuesday.
The statement was issued after “a barrage of calls from the media and the public,” according to Sam Stanton in California’s Sacramento Bee.
Webb’s ex-wife, Sue Bell, said that “the 49-year-old Webb had been distraught for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper,” the Bee story continued.
While they didn’t pull the trigger, there is no doubt that the newspaper industry and Webb’s old employer treated one of their own shabbily.
“Webb’s death is a tragedy, and not just because suicide is always tragic,” as one writer, Michael Manville, put it on his freezebox.com Web site. “There is no point in being subtle about this. Gary Webb was a reporter who expected more from his profession than his profession was capable of delivering; he embodied a particular ideal of journalism and journalism let him down.”
Commenting on the obit that ran in Webb’s old paper, Richard Thieme wrote on the left-wing Counterpunch magazine site:
“Of course the newspaper did not report that he resigned only after months of commuting to a dead-end assignment 150 miles from his family and home to which he had been exiled. Forced to work so far from his family, Webb grew depressed and made a sane choice.”
Webb’s infraction was that he wrote a series — vetted and edited before publication — whose flaws were seized upon by rival newspapers. Then his own paper’s editor disowned it.
Though Webb was white, the uproar was filled with racial implications inside and outside the newsroom.
As Pia Hinckle wrote in a deconstruction of the controversy a year later in the Columbia Journalism Review:
“The events that preceded the publication of the ‘Dark Alliance’ series in the San Jose Mercury News last August and that led up to executive editor Jerry Ceppos’s unusual mea culpa column about it this May have the elements of a pretty good newspaper movie.
“There is the aggressive lone-wolf investigative reporter who may or may not have fallen down a reportorial rabbit hole; the young Latina city editor, newly promoted and protective of her star reporter; the thoughtful executive editor struggling with his conscience as parts of a huge ‘holy shit!’ story seem to unravel before his eyes; the racial and social undertones of news room politics; plus tales of personal tragedies and professional laxity. The backdrop is the CIA’s history and dirty laundry, angry mistrust among some African-Americans about their government, about the injustices of the drug war, and the devastation of inner-city communities from crack.
“. . . What happened inside the Mercury News during this last year is something like what can and does happen in any number of newsrooms — writers misjudging or exaggerating the portent of their reporting; editors failing to inspect the undergirding of a story’s logic; busy executives getting distracted; editorial systems breaking down. Except that what went wrong in San Jose was so much more damaging, inside and outside the newsroom.
“. . . When the series finally saw ink last August, the newsroom divided roughly into two camps: those who believed that regardless of its flaws, the series was significant, and those who thought it was a one-sided conspiracy theory from a cowboy reporter. To some extent the split fell along lines of who tended to be critical of management and who didn’t, but it also tended to break along ethnic and gender lines. ‘The “supporters,” the people who believed aspects of the theories, were mostly women and ethnic minorities, while the opposition was led by what I guess you could call the “angry white guys,”‘ says Ricardo Sandoval, Mexico correspondent for the Mercury News, who was in the San Jose newsroom through most of the controversy. ‘It really reflected the division in the public at large.’ Several other staffers also confirmed this characterization.”
Webb said he was offended by the angle that other mainstream newspapers put on the interest African Americans had in his series: “I don’t think there’s any other word but racist,” he said in an interview with Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy, Now!”
“I have never seen an entire race labeled as conspiracy theorists before. This was really — that’s when I thought they had really gone off the deep end, when they were trying to convince everybody that, well, you know, these black people, you know, they believe anything they’re told, which was when you boil it down, that’s exactly what the articles [debunking his series] were saying.”
“In this weekend’s mainstream media reports on Gary Webb’s death, it’s no surprise that a key point has been overlooked,” said Jeff Cohen of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, “that the CIA’s internal investigation sparked by the Webb series and resulting furor contained startling admissions. CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz reported in October 1998 that the CIA indeed had knowledge of the allegations linking many Contras and Contra associates to cocaine trafficking, that Contra leaders were arranging drug connections from the beginning and that a CIA informant told the agency about the activity.”
“The ferocity of the attack on Webb led the [Washington] Post’s ombudsman to note that the three national newspapers [that attempted to debunk the series] ‘showed more passion for sniffing out the flaws’ in the Webb series than for probing the important issue Webb had raised: U.S. government relations with drug smuggling,” Cohen wrote.
Webb’s interest in racial matters continued after he left the Mercury News.
“He also did other fine journalism, notably — in Esquire — the definitive expose of what came to be known as ‘driving while black’, about the system program of racial profiling by cops across the country,” Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, who followed up Webb’s series with their own book, “Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Press,” wrote.
Officials who were at the Mercury News at the time of “Dark Alliance” — publisher Jay T. Harris, editor Jerry Ceppos, and managing editor David Yarnold — did not respond to requests for comment today; neither, apparently, have they been quoted in stories since Webb’s death. Then-city editor Dawn Garcia was reported unreachable, on vacation.
America’s Debt to Journalist Gary Webb (Robert Parry, consortiumnews.com)
Dismal Latino Record, but More Positive Stories
“While the portrayal of Latinos improved slightly in 2003, network coverage of Latinos remained dismal given the growth and importance of the nation’s Latino community. Latinos make up close to 14 percent of the U.S. population,” the National Association of Hispanic Journalists reported this week in its ninth annual “Network Brownout Report.”
However, under “positive trends,” the report, a study of the thousands of stories that appeared in 2003 on ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC, noted that “Latinos were more positively portrayed in 2003 with many news stories highlighting the contributions that Latinos are making to society. . . . Many of these stories profiled the service and sacrifice made by Latino soldiers.”
In addition, said the study, done for the organization by Federico Subervi, a media consultant in Austin, Texas, “the overall number of crime stories about Latinos declined from 47 stories (39 percent) in 2002 to 27 stories (21 percent) in 2003.
But overall, the study said, “the percentage of Latinos on screen virtually failed to register. The report found that Latinos did not often appear in non-Latino related stories. Out of 16,000 stories that aired in 2003, Latinos appeared as sources in an estimated 285 non-Latino stories (1.8 percent). Interviews with Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson accounted for 40 percent of this total.
“The sobering reality is that U.S. households were hard pressed to view any story about Latinos in 2003. Out of nearly 350 stories that aired on the network evening news each week, a little more than two stories were about Latinos.”
2004 Network Brownout Report (PDF)
Black TV Viewing Drops, Especially Among Women
“While black viewers as a group traditionally have watched more TV than white viewers, TV usage among black viewers has declined over the past few years,” according to Matt Tatham, senior communications analyst for Nielsen Media Research, quoted in an article by John Consoli in Media Week.
“UPN brought the matter to Nielsen Media Research in October when it first noticed the dropoff, but executives say they’ve gotten few answers,” Consoli wrote. “‘We see some things that are troubling within the sample, but we don’t want to jump to conclusions,’ said Dave Poltrack, executive vp, research and planning for CBS, who also oversees research for sister network UPN. ‘We have asked Nielsen for a lot of analysis on African American viewing patterns across all the networks, not just UPN. They have provided some things, but we are still waiting for further response.'”
Ex-Reporter Stephen Hill Gets New Judge
“Former television investigative reporter Stephen Hill will have one of the most stringent Hamilton County judges decide his fate after Judge David Davis removed himself from Hill’s case Monday,” Kimball Perry wrote in the Cincinnati Post.
Common Pleas Court Judge Robert Ruehlman, known for imposing tough sentences, “was assigned the case Monday by random selection. Davis stepped down from the case after Hill’s attorney, Ken Lawson, angrily accused the judge Friday of being biased against Hill.
“. . . Hill already has accepted a deal with prosecutors — he pleaded guilty in October to four counts of sexual battery — and agreed to be sentenced to five years in prison.
At the court hearing today under the new judge, it was revealed that Hill “had other sexual relationships with minors in addition to the four male teens he fooled into having sex with him in Cincinnati,” Perry wrote in a story for the Post’s Web site.
“Ruehlman still must decide what level of sexual predator Hill should be declared. The level determines for how many years Hill has to register with police as a sexual offender — 10 years, 20 years or for life — and how many of Hill’s neighbors will be notified of his sex crimes once he is released from prison,” the earlier story explained.
Hill’s sexual history revealed (Cincinnati Post)
Community Organizer Buys Oakland Weekly
“As a young civil rights activist in 1965 drawn to voter registration battles in Selma, Ala., Paul Cobb worked as a reporter for the Oakland Post,” wrote Chauncey Bailey in California’s Oakland Tribune.
“Last week, Cobb bought the weekly newspaper. The sale price was not disclosed.
“Cobb, a West Oakland community organizer who once led the Oakland Citizens Committee for Urban Renewal and served as a mayoral appointee on the Board of Education, said he wants to carry on a proud tradition of newspaper publishing that targets the African-American community.”
Black Roanoke Publisher Is “Citizen of Year”
“Several weeks ago, Mayor Nelson Harris named Claudia Whitworth, owner of The Roanoke Tribune, Roanoke Citizen of the Year,” reported Radford University professor Reginald Shareef on Roanoke.com, Web site of Virginia’s Roanoke Times.
“She is probably best known to the broader Roanoke community as the publisher of The Roanoke Tribune. The paper, started in 1939 by her father, is one of the longest surviving black community newspapers in the United States. Her business skills in keeping the paper relevant and profitable could easily be a case study for MBA students studying entrepreneurship at UVa’s Darden School or Virginia Tech’s Pamplin School of Business.
“The Tribune’s business strategy is unique — it keeps generations of far-flung black Roanokers linked through its weekly publication. A recent Roanoke Times article reported that there are 6,000 subscribers to the paper. These subscribers form, in contemporary business language, a ‘network.’ Much like Bill Gates’ Windows operating systems, you literally can’t communicate or interface the social and cultural life of black Roanoke (or black Roanokers living elsewhere) without belonging to the Tribune network.”
Why Latinos in Boulder Don’t Like the Paper
“As part of the Camera’s participation in its Parity Project, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists conducted an online survey. The number of participants was fairly small and the survey wasn’t scientific, but the results reflect what we’ve heard from others,” Susan Deans, editor of the Daily Camera in Boulder, Colo., wrote Sunday.
“The Parity Project is a national effort to help news media develop better relationships with the Hispanic community and improve recruiting of Hispanic journalists. The project is working in a number of cities, with the goal of increasing the number of Hispanic journalists to match the percentage of Hispanics in each market. In Boulder County just over 10 percent of residents are Hispanic.
“The survey shows 66 percent of local respondents think the Camera does a poor or below-average job of covering events and issues in the Latino community (In most cases the terms Latino and Hispanic can be used interchangeably, according to Kevin Olivas of NAHJ, director of the Parity Project. This survey used Latino.). And 63 percent think the Camera’s understanding of issues important to the Latino community is poor or below average. Other concerns include accuracy, balance and coverage of Latino issues in editorials.
” . . . The Camera wants to do a better job of covering all of our community. That’s why we’re focused on the Parity Project right now. We hope to see significant progress in the coming year.”
Robert D. Reid, Illinois J-Prof, Dies at 64
“Robert D. Reid, a recently retired professor of journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, suffered a heart attack and died early today at his home in Champaign. He was 64,” the university announced on its Web site.
“Reid began teaching journalism at Illinois in 1979 as a visiting lecturer, then joined the journalism faculty as a professor in 1980. He retired for health reasons in fall 2003.”
“He was a tremendous mentor to many minority j-students, including John Fountain, who joined the faculty this year (and has Reid’s old office), Sabrina Miller, Ismail Turay, the late Iris Chang and myself,” Raven Hill, education reporter at the Austin American-Statesman, told Journal-isms.
Jamal Watson Editing N.Y. Amsterdam News
Jamal E. Watson has been named to the previously unfilled position of executive editor of the New York Amsterdam News by the paper’s publisher, Elinor R. Tatum.
Watson, 30, was a reporter at the Baltimore Sun and the Boston Globe, where he made news in the rival Boston Herald after a curious newsroom incident.
A Boston Herald story from Oct. 25, 2001, began:
“Here’s something you won’t read in the Boring Broadsheet: Ex-Boston Globe reporter Jamal Watson is out of a job and his friendship with colleague David Abel is over after Abel’s wallet disappeared from the Globe newsroom . . .
“‘The whole thing is just inexplicable,’ said a spy on the scene. ‘No one can figure out what’s going on.'”
Watson said that contrary to the Herald report, he had already resigned from the Globe and in any event had not been charged with anything. However, Watson decided not to move forward with a job he had lined up in the mayor’s office. In Boston he was also, briefly, the region’s representative on the board of the National Association of Black Journalists.
In any case, Watson told Journal-isms that at the Amsterdam, “My goal is to increase circulation and to break news stories each week.
“I hope to hire new freelancers (there is no money, as you know for any additional full-time positions) and I want to improve the content and the paper on the Internet.
“More specifically, I plan to help oversee the process of digitalizing the paper’s archives, building a strong intern and fellowship program for recent graduates of historically black colleges who will spend a year reporting and writing for the paper.”
A graduate of Georgetown University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Watson is completing his doctorate in Afro-American Studies from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is writing his dissertation on Ethel Payne, first lady of the black press.
Last year, Watson was on the faculty of Marist College as a visiting professor and spent the summer on an American Society of Newspaper Editors Journalism Education Fellowship, where he reported for the Chicago Tribune.
In a review of fabricator Jayson Blair’s book earlier this year in the Amsterdam, Watson wrote:
“While efforts to demonize him will continue, it?s also clear that if there is any group of people who understand the importance of redemption and forgiveness, it?s Black people.
“And just by standing up and agreeing to face the wolves by offering what is certainly a sincere apology, it seems that Blair certainly deserves a bit of that forgiveness.”
