“Just one more example,”<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> a <\/P> For his brave reporting at the San Jose Mercury News, Webb paid a high price. He was On Friday, Dec. 10, Gary Webb, 49, died of an apparent suicide, a gunshot wound to the <\/P> That’s just the beginning of what Robert Parry<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> had to say “Just one more example,” a friend writes, “of why I have so little respect for American journalism. Much of the work done does not even deserve the name of journalism. But the real blame rests on the American public. It gets the government and journalism it deserves.” Here’s what he’s talking about: In 1996, journalist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-fx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nfriend writes, “of why I have so little respect for American journalism. Much of the work done
\ndoes not even deserve the name of journalism. But the real blame rests on the American public. It
\ngets the government and journalism it deserves.” Here’s what he’s talking about:<\/P>
\n
\nIn 1996, journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of articles that forced a
\nlong-overdue investigation of a very dark chapter of recent U.S. foreign policy — the
\nReagan-Bush administration’s protection of cocaine traffickers who operated under the cover of
\nthe Nicaraguan contra war in the 1980s.
\n
\n
\nattacked by journalistic colleagues at the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles
\nTimes, the American Journalism Review and even the Nation magazine. Under this media
\npressure, his editor Jerry Ceppos sold out the story and demoted Webb, causing him to quit the
\nMercury News. Even Webb’s marriage broke up.<\/P>
\n
\nhead.<\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\n
\nyesterday. Go read the complete story. Then get hold of “Lost
\nHistory: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth,'”<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> his 1999 book on the
\nIran-Contra scandal and how the mainstream media “throughly kept [the American public] in the
\ndark about the unsavory secrets of the past half century.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"