Thursday, December 16, 2004

"The Last North American Career Journalist"

Al Giordano of Narconews has posted a brilliant and absolutely heartbreaking tribute to his friend and fellow authentic journalist, Gary Webb, here.

One of the many goddamn shames about this tragedy is that Webb's death could come to overshadow his life and work. It's what happens with our slain heroes. The circumstances of their sudden passing - whether they be lonegunman'd, accident'd or suicide'd - often become our first thoughts about these figures whose lives meant a better world. And that's the legacy of those who took their lives, not the legacy for which they deserve to be best remembered. Death effaces life, mystery obfuscates truth, and the fuckers win again.

Giordano does not question the verdict of suicide. I'm unpersuaded. But while we need to seek the truth about his death - two shotgun blasts to the head? - what I admire about Giordano's piece is that the truth of Webb's life remains paramount.

An excerpt, but it deserves to be read as a whole:

Gary never wrote with mere ink or pixels. Gary opened up a vein every time he sat down to tell us a new truth and he signed his byline, always, in blood. If you think that his suicide did not send as powerful a message as the stories he investigated and penned in life, think again: Gary was The Last North American Career Journalist. He presided over a transitional era and his death marks the end of that era. Fellow and sister journalists: The canary has died in the coal mine. Run out of that mine now, and seek alternate routes to truth-telling. There is no longer room for us inside the corporate machine.

All over the world he is mourned today. The compañeros here in Chiapas came to me last night. “You knew him. He worked for you. Did he ever come here? Did he know about us?” As they peppered me with questions I retreated far into myself. Time and space stopped, as it has before in this deep green tropical jungle. I could see it – the bullet (two bullets say the coroner: Gary was nothing if not thorough and persistent; imagine for a moment what strength it took to get off the second round) off in the distance somewhere over California, those bullets, the first one fired by that traitor-to-journalism-and-truth Jerry Ceppos in San Jose, those bullets that came out the other side of Gary’s cranium in Sacramento last week and took a southern turn toward me. And when they are done with me they will come for you. I could see and hear them heading my way last night and so today I type these words in a hurry so as to shoot back before my brains, too, are splattered on the page of history.

To be an Authentic Journalist in 2004 is to be a soldier at war. When a hero dies in battle first we must drape the coffin, sound the slow, sad bugle song of Taps, and remember this great man who died fighting for all of us. Among the soldiers I have known in my foxhole, there were none finer, more effective in a firefight, than Gary. He was a god among insects, and a particularly important god among gods (shortly before his death, Gary told our colleague Bill Conroy that he had applied for a reporter’s job at the San Antonio Express-News and that the newspaper never even acknowledged his application: In the immortal words of Jonathan Swift, “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that all the dunces are in confederacy against him.”)

...

I ask the compañeros here in Chiapas – they loved Gary, too - what I should do now: What can be done? I can’t bring Gary back and neither can you. Not even the compañeros, with all the revolutionary magic and ancient knowledge they can muster, can bring back Gary Webb: although they could have, as they brought me back seven years ago, if only we and I had cared enough about Gary to drag him by the hand to them, to have been alert that when he lost his job he was at risk, to have paid enough attention to have seen him sinking toward the grave, to have supported anybody who still loved him intimately to be able to stick with him, to have raised him the money so that he would not have lost his sense of place.

The compañeros gave me the answer to my question. What to do about the early death of Gary Webb? Their answer was so simple, so clear, that I kick myself for not having realized it immediately.

The answer: “Do what he did. Do what Gary would have done today if he were still alive.”

Mike Ruppert writes that "I myself might have committed suicide in 1996 - broke, divorced and having given up all hope of making people listen - had it not been for Gary Webb." Wisely, he adds, "For some years now it has been the farthest thing from my mind." Perhaps it would be prudent for the few authentic journalists left standing in America to follow Ruppert's example, and go on record regarding their disinclination to taking their own lives.

Ruppert concludes:

I am going to the funeral and I will be asking questions in Sacramento. Given the disproportionate number of "suicides" of authors and journalists who have covered such stories, and the mainstream's horrendously dishonest coverage of such events, it is right to see if there are grounds to be cautiously suspicious of these accounts. But it is also right to avoid hysteria and unsupported conclusions until there are solid reasons to suspect foul play.

Gary would have wanted us all to do this by the numbers, patiently and thoroughly. That was his style. That was why he was so good.

When funeral arrangements are announced FTW will publish them and we encourage all of our subscribers to send flowers, write letters and show their thanks to this man who changed all of our lives forever.

It wouldn't hurt if you wanted to let the L.A. Times know what you think of their obituary.

Sleep well, Gary. Wherever men and women of honor gather together from now on, your name will be spoken with reverence, respect and gratitude.


14 Comments:

Blogger Juke said...

It doesn't matter who pulled the actual trigger, not out here where all this is happening. To his immediate family yes, but not here. Out here he did brave things and was broken for them, and that breaking led right to the gun, if it in fact it was his hand on the trigger. Like xymphora said, we should start from the other side of the spectrum, considering who he was and what he did. Rule out everything else, then call it suicide. And even then...

10:04 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/122004_goodbye_giant.shtml

SAYING GOODBYE TO A GIANT

Gary Webb Memorial Attended by Hundreds

New Information Confirms Suicide - "Open and Shut"

Shabby, Self-Serving Internet Reports by Pseudo Journalists and Activists Cause Webb Family Grief - It's Time for Real Journalists and Activists to Shun Demagogues, Hysterics and Profiteers
by
Michael C. Ruppert

....

I note that not one of the so-called journalists eager to cry murder -- especially radio demagogue and sensationalist fear monger Alex Jones (See Below) -- bothered to pick up the phone, send an email or make any attempt to contact the family or any agency for their observations, wishes or facts. Not the slightest concern was shown by any of them for an already devastated family. The wounded were kicked and exploited when they were already down. For this there can be no forgiveness and no pardon.

In other words, one of the most fundamental tenets of journalism - one that Gary himself would have honored and demanded - was completely ignored by people who demonstrated that they have no class, zero judgment and not the slightest thought for anything but their own self-serving needs.

....

THE SHAME OF ALEX JONES AND JOHN HANKEY

There were many hysterical, unfounded internet rumors and wild stories circulated in the days following Gary's death. Unfortunately, almost all of them reached his family; the human beings you see in these pictures. I was even accused of participating in Gary's murder because I wrote that I had as yet seen "no reason" (i.e. evidence) to suspect murder and I, like many others had known pieces of Gary's state of mind in the months and years prior to his death.

None of these outrages inflicted upon Webb's family surpass those of radio demagogue Alex Jones and internet activist John Hankey.

The internet is an indispensable tool which brings us the BBC, major publications, university research, data bases, instant communication, and authentic investigative journalism. It also brings us a host of so-called journalists - angry, selfish children playing with the loaded weapons of powerful words who contaminate this medium with garbage. Because the internet must always - like free speech itself - be free from censorship (for as long as we can keep it that way) we will have to endure the work of people who have no conscience, no ethics and little or no skill.

But the marketplace of ideas does work on the internet and I am going to put it use right now.

On December 14th, Alex Jones, publishing on his web site prisonplanet.com released an article titled

UPDATE: CORONER's INITIAL FINDING: GARY WEBB's DEATH CONFIRMED AS SUICIDE / NEW EVIDENCE BEGINS TO INDICATE GARY WEBB WAS MURDERED MOST LIKELY CIA OPERATIVES HE WAS GETTING READY TO EXPOSE AGAIN / WEBB SPOKE OF DEATH THREATS AND SEEING 'GOVERNMENT PEOPLE' LURKING AROUND HIS HOME / WAS HE ANOTHER DANNY CASOLERO?! - by Alex Jones & Paul Joseph Watson.

Upon seeing the headline I laughed. Danny Casolaro was a real journalist whose murder was made to appear a suicide but Jones could not even spell his name correctly.

Jones has a large syndicated and internet radio show for which he claims a listening audience of "millions". Strange that he could not reach out into his vast empire to have someone in the Sacramento area check just a few facts before he published and sent his garbage out straight to Webb's family. FTW does that with its subscribers frequently because we - like Gary Webb - spare no effort to get it right.

....

Above are photographs I took of Gary's house (2016 Clearfield Way in Carmichael, a Sacramento suburb) showing clearly that it is a one-story house. There is no balcony anywhere and there are no pipes for Ricky Ross' Ninja warriors to slide down. There are aluminum drain spouts visible but they would not support a man's weight and I am at a loss to understand why a government Ninja would want to slide down it since the eave of the roof is barely seven feet off the ground. It would be much easier to hang from the edge and then drop a foot or two. And what would have been the purpose of being on the roof anyway? There's no door there. How did these Ninjas get on the roof?

Many credible activists and journalists - including this writer - have been previously burned by Jones' hyperbole, salacious sensationalism and eagerness to play loose with and even fabricate facts in the past. But this travesty is beyond the pale; beyond redemption.

....

This is a time for all of us who are activists, professional investigator and journalists on the internet to distinguish and separate ourselves from those who do not employ professional standards for their investigation and reporting. These standards are used to make what is consumed by a sometimes too-trusting readership trustworthy and useful. It is a matter of love and honor for those who read what we write.

Just as the dishonest mainstream media distances itself from those of us who use this powerful medium out of fear, it is time for those of us who care about getting it right to draw an unmistakable line between ourselves and the internet "trailer trash" who detract from the very, very difficult job that Gary Webb gave his life for: Telling the truth, getting it right and proving it in a way that can be trusted… No matter what the cost.

This is what Gary Webb taught us.

5:52 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

After all that has transpired the past year with Ruppert, and then coming across the above pasted response from Ruppert regarding Alex Jones' website posting two questions concering the possibilty of his being murdered, it leaves little doubt to me that Ruppert is cointel. Sure he brought some crucial info to the table, but considering his intel background, it's not a stretch to say that he might've used the 9-11 movement as an infiltration. After all, can you name me one group of people more desperate for a ex FBI voice back in the Summer of 04?

6:55 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Can someone explain to me what the benifit is of all these SPAM posts? I just don't get it. What is the purpose and the goal of the post above mine?

By the way, on the Webb topic... Anyone wonder if Porter Goss might've played a role considering the timing of his being named CIA director?

And one more thing... What about Webb's last story on the military using video games to scout and brainwash new recruits?

5:16 p.m.  
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