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Investigative reporting is being sort of squeezed out of the picture and I think intentionally

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because it tends to ruffle feathers.

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I mean, it's good investigative reporting does ruffle feathers and it draws lawsuits and

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it gets newspapers and trouble.

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My name's Gary Webb.

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I am an investigative journalist.

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I've been an investigative journalist for about 25 years for daily newspapers and in

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1996 I wrote a series of stories entitled Dark Alliance which is about CIA involvement

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in drug trafficking.

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What my story showed was that the cocaine that was being sold in those neighborhoods

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was coming from mainly one source and this one source was being used to finance a gorilla

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war in Central America.

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The general idea of the CIA dealing drugs was something that the American mainstream

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press had never written about before and that's why it prompted outrage among blacks,

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among drug reform activists, among politicians, by the CIA, by every federal agency involved

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in the drug war because it showed they were doing their jobs.

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There was a fraud.

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Right after we published the stories, the support we got from the media was very favorable.

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Newsweek magazine did a big piece in the story and said it was well documented and what

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researched.

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The website was getting like a million hits a day.

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There were marches and walks, there were marches and coffin and they were candlelight

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visuals.

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Every California senator, the NANDID and official investigation.

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So the story itself was really building momentum.

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The government reaction was no reaction and this I believe was a very careful strategy

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because nobody was going to believe the government if they came out and said we didn't

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do it.

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The proof was fairly overwhelming since we had all these government documents showing

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that it had happened.

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So what happened was they let the so-called liberal press speak for them and they had

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the National Security Reporters at the Washington Post who coincidentally used to work

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for the CIA.

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Right story is saying it doesn't mean anything.

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It was a distraction from what the story said and it became sort of a media war between

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the Mercury News which stood behind the story at that point and the rest of these

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established with media who wanted us to back away from it.

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And part of that reason was because these major newspapers have written about this issue

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back in the 1980s but had written about it very dismissively as if this is nonsense.

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It doesn't happen.

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It never happened.

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And then 10 years later we came back with documentation showing that it was absolutely

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true and that it was worse than it was.

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We had gotten the story out around them and we had gotten it out in a big way that they

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couldn't control and that was the internet.

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And I think a lot of this was directed to the Mercury News to say we don't care what

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gotten it.

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We don't care what kind of story we've got.

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We set the National News agenda and if we don't like your story we will kill your story

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regardless of truth.

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The media rejoiced when this came out because it meant they had won.

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They had forced a newspaper to back away from a story that was true.

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Simply because of this barrage, of criticism, of mindless criticism essentially that really

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took its toll on the internet's vector and they were being seen as sort of outcasts from

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the club.

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And I think they made it political decision that it was better in the long run take

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a dive on this story and get back in the good races at the rest of the media.

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It was essentially a war between my editors and myself because I wouldn't apologize for

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the story or back away from the story and fought them on it publicly.

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And so they transferred me to a bureau that was a hundred and forty miles from where I

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lived and I called in sick a lot.

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One of the things I'm proud of in regards to that story is the website that the Mercury

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News set up because it really was the first time that a newspaper brought its readers.

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Not only into the interior of paper but into the reporters' notebooks.

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This was a story that as I told my editors had a very high unbelievable ability factor

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built into them.

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A lot of people were going to say this can't be true.

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And this story became a sensation because of the website, not because of the story, but

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because people could get to it.

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And they could never have gotten to it before because it's an American movie.

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There's a small regional newspaper in Northern California that you couldn't read if you

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lived in New York or you couldn't read if you lived in LA.

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But the story you could read anywhere in the world and see all of our documentation.

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So if you can and we did this on purpose to make it very hard to not down, to make it very difficult

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for people to say this didn't happen.

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But they said it didn't happen at all.

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Old pirates, yes they are by, sold I do them a chance.

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Minutes after they took I from the bottom of the space.

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But my hat was made strong by the hand of the almighty.

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We followed in this generation.

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Try on firmly won't you help to sing?

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These songs of freedom, because all I ever had, redemption song.

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These songs of freedom, these songs of freedom.

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authentic journalism is telling people something that the government doesn't want them to know.