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Restructuring: basis and plans

I have done a major restructuring to the article. Please note that, except for one or two places where sentences had to be rewritten to match the new structure, I have not removed or rewritten anything. I would appreciate any and all comments/revisions to the changes. If you want to revert, for sure discuss it here first to avoid confusion and unnecessary appeals to various Misplaced Pages bodies. I feel the restructuring was very necessary. The major points in the article are now all each in separate sections and in a logical order. I am especially interested whether others think the section titles or section order have problems. If you think there are better ways of structuring the article, please explain.

One final point: I think the fundamental lack of balance in this article is now stark. The space devoted to the criticisms of the Dark Alliance series amounts to 2 sentences, less than 60 words. Webb's response get over 700 words and his supporters get over 1000 words. Misplaced Pages is full of unbalanced articles, but this is certainly one of the more obvious cases. Unbalanced does not mean that everyone has to get the same amount of words. It means that criticism of Webb's work is inadequately described, so that even his supporters' defense is incomprehensible in some cases.

Dark Alliance series section: synopsis

Ready to look at the series section now. Added a couple of introductory sentences and reference to the wayback archive; eventually should be able to eliminate links to this and other material from external links. At this point, the series is very under-described. There should be at least one or two sentences for each of the main articles in the series, and for sure Ross, Blandon, and Meneses need to be identified. Right now they pop up randomly in the investigation result section, "see also" section, and "further reading section without any context whatsoever. Rgr09 (talk) 14:16, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Series synopsis 2

I put in a new synopsis of the series after reading it a few times, and looking at the Schou bio, investigation findings, and follow up coverage on the archived Mercury website. I use quotes from the lead, which I think gives a better feeling of what and how Webb wrote. The original summary had some of the problems I noted above. It tried to defend the series by appealing to the book (which is now in another article), it attempted to rebut criticism of the series (that it claimed the CIA directly aided drug dealers to raise money for the Contras) without citing the criticism, and it omitted one of the most controversial parts of the series, the claim that the Meneses-Blandon-Ross triangle played a major role in the expansion of crack cocaine use in L.A. and nationally. Rgr09 (talk) 00:29, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Series synopsis 3

Finished synopsis of the series. In addition to the three main articles, there were five shorter articles, published as sidebars in the newspaper version, according to Schou's bio. I didn't do anything with these and unless the series is to be separated out in its own article, I don't think these should go in. There is a lot of complex detail in there; Webb's book based on the series was over 500 pages.

Now that there is a more complete synopsis, it is finally possible to write clearly about the initial response to the series. There is easily available material for this; as before, I take Schou's biography as a primary basis. The archived website also has an extensive collection of stories on this, both from the Mercury News and other papers. Initial response should include Webb's follow up stories that led to the LASD investigation, but right now the follow up coverage by the NYT, WP, and LAT, is in a later section. Rgr09 (talk) 06:11, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Initial response section and investigation conclusions

The initial response section now covers the origins of the investigations sparked by DA. There is more to write, but for now I am skipping to the section on investigations in response to the series. The original content of this section failed to clearly explain how the investigations were started or who conducted them, and omitted the SPCI investigation, which is why I revised the initial response section to do so. This section is still needed to explain the investigations' conclusions, so I will revise for that purpose.

As I said before, there are problems with the current content of this section. I have now found the source for most of it. It is based on an article on Robert Parry's website: America's Debt to Journalist Gary Webb. This article is neither a timeline of the investigations nor a summary of their conclusions. It is a sketch of some of Parry's views, and probably comes from his book on the Contra-cocaine controversy, "Lost History." Parry is critical of the investigations' conclusions and much of his article is actually a rebuttal of them. This is not made clear in the current section, which incorrectly attributes several of Parry's rebuttals to the investigations themselves (!). I will revise based on what the investigation reports actually said, either in summary or through short quotes.

The investigation conclusions were not universally praised or accepted; they were criticized by a number of people, such as Maxine Waters. It is quite reasonable to put in sourced descriptions of some of this criticism, subject to Misplaced Pages standards of notability and reliability, but it shouldn't be attributed to the reports themselves. Rgr09 (talk) 03:24, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

investigation conclusions 2

Added chronology of investigation results and revised version of Bromwich findings. Will finish this section then take a break. Would appreciate any comments from those who have weighed in before (@Rja13ww33: @Jonpatterns:) or others interested in the article. Rgr09 (talk) 08:16, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

The section looks good. Could probably use more on what the CIA's IG report concluded.Rja13ww33 (talk) 17:34, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

BTW, check the release date of one of the reports (I think it should be 1997 not 1977)Rja13ww33 (talk) 17:43, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Restructuring 4

I've done a final restructuring of the article, so that it is now mostly chronological. There were several longer paragraphs I took out, if there are questions/comments about these, post here. Rgr09 (talk) 01:29, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

section on views of Webb's reporting

This section is an amorphous heap of quotes about Webb without any connections or order, frequently redundant and/or indirect. Geneva Overholser's criticism of the Washington Post coverage originally appeared 4 times, all of them indirect quotes. Redundant quotes are frequent in Misplaced Pages, but not like this; really odd. I've deleted three of them, and when I've got a reference to the original, I will cite directly from that and delete the remaining indirect quote. I question the relevance and notability of Richard Thieme as a source on Webb's writing. If I don't hear anything on this, I will delete as well. Rgr09 (talk) 06:14, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

New lead paragraph

I have revised the lead paragraph for the article, adding and subtracting from the previous content. I added a thumbnail description of Webb's career. I think this is particularly important, since previous versions of this article have slighted Webb's career as an investigative reporter and focused on the Dark Alliance controversy. I disagree with this; the article is a biography for Webb, not an article on "Dark Alliance". As I suggested before, if the "Dark Alliance" section becomes too long, it may be more appropriate to move it to another article. This has already been done for the Dark Alliance book.

I also shortened the description of the "Dark Alliance" series; the original description in the lead was long and detailed, but now that there is a description of the series further down in the article, this is no longer necessary. I also added the outraged African-American response to the series and fact that the series led to four local and national investigations. These were two important reasons that the series was notable and help to explain its importance in Webb's career. I'd be interested in any comments on the revisions. Rgr09 (talk) 06:36, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Infobox 2

With a new lead paragraph, I've also edited the infobox. Now that the article gives adequate coverage to Webb's contribution to the Mercury News Pulitzer award, I've removed the Pulitzer award from the box. For an explanation of why, see my comments above. I also removed the two smaller papers that Webb worked for; there is no reason to put his entire work resume here. I also changed his occupation description to investigative reporter, since this was his main occupation and claim to notability. Rgr09 (talk) 06:47, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Introduction revisions

I further revised the article introduction to reflect the changes made to the main body and to fix problems mentioned above. I moved most of the information in the original introduction to the "Views of Webb's reporting section." Since this section is basically a miscellany, it is impossible to say where it should go; I put it near the beginning of the section, for no special reason.

This is my last attempt at revising the article for the near future. Coverage by other papers is not done, the report conclusions are not done, and I'm especially sorry to leave the views section in such a mess. But life is short and I've spent far more time than I intended on this. I will check in periodically to see if there are any comments on the revisions. Rgr09 (talk) 06:43, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

One more try

I finally was able to get some of the Washington Post articles, so I'm going to take a stab at finishing up the section on coverage at other papers, and add some material I have at hand on Mercury News response. This will allow reduction in the very messy section on others' views on webb's writing, which is still awful. Rgr09 (talk) 03:56, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

added section on mercury news response to criticism

This section was needed to illustrate the many attempts the SJMN made to defend the series, and the responses they met. I finally got the original Overholser article and deleted the indirect quote from later in the article as I said I would. I was surprised to see that Overholser also has very harsh criticism of Webb. This was totally absent from the four quotes from Overholser which were previously in the article. As noted above, all of these were indirect quotes from two articles defending Webb. It is not surprising that these articles omitted Overholser's criticisms, but it is unacceptable for Misplaced Pages to do so. Use of indirect quotes from sympathetic sources is one of the main reasons why the article came to be so unbalanced. Rgr09 (talk) 14:31, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Revising the section on views of webb's writing

Please excuse the length of this comment, but I have a lot to say on this. I have started revising by removing several quotes. The purpose of revising this section is not to remove praise for Webb or criticism of the Washington Post et al. It is to give the section a basic structure of some kind. The section now is a heap of random quotes, almost all of which purport to defend Webb or criticize Webb's critics in some way or another, but the total lack of structure keeps it from even doing that. The first part of fixing this is to get rid of some of the less useful or important quotes, principally from people who contribute less information to how Webb's series was written or edited or what it meant. Here are some comments on the quotes I removed.

The quote from Richard Thieme has been questioned more than once on the talk page. Other than having talked to Webb, he seems irrelevant to the article, so this was first to go. The Thieme quote was apparently originally added as a sort of counterbalance to a quote from Daniel Pipes. Pipes wrote a book on conspiracy theories that had harsh words for "Dark Alliance" and the quote from him was later deleted for lack of knowledge of the story or expertise in journalism. Thieme, however, remained despite his similar lack of qualifications.

The quote from Mark Fenster has similar problems. Fenster's book was actually a response to Pipes's book and suffers from the same defects that Pipes had, lack of knowledge of the story and lack of expertise in journalism. Looking at the references for the paragraph from Fenster that was cited, he refers to Schou's biography and a single article by Peter Kornbluh, showing no special knowledge or expertise.

The quote from Aucoin is from an article by Barbara Osborn in Extra magazine. I removed this because indirect quotes are problematic, as the Overholser quote mentioned above shows. If one cites Osborn's article, much better, and safer, to quote what Osborn says, rather than quote her quotes. The quote is also not integrated into the article, for which see below.

As noted above, Overholser's criticisms are moved to the section on Mercury News responses, where they fit in chronologically. In that section, I also added a quote from Steve Weinberg, dating from the same time. Weinberg is well qualified to comment on Webb's series; he is favorable to Webb, so if you are counting mark one on the plus side. I really do find it bizarre that people like Thieme were in the article and Weinberg, a notable journalist writing in a major newspaper, was not.

I also pulled a claim referenced to "Esquire magazine." It is unhelpful and often misleading to attribute quotes to magazines or newspapers, rather than the people who actually wrote the quote. The reference was to a profile of Webb in 1998 by Charles Bowden; again, not an ideal person to comment on the issues. In addition, the claim, that Webb's series had "copious citations" in contrast to the Los Angeles Times which used unnamed intelligence officials needs to be integrated somehow into the article. Instead it is just a random comment.

Double ditto for the very cryptic remark that "In September, 2014, the CIA Revealed how it watched over the destruction of Gary Webb." The citation is to an article that apparently has attracted some editors' attention, but not every reference to Webb and his series belongs in this article. "Misplaced Pages is not a directory." If you find an article you think provides information that belongs in the article on Webb, you need to explain what that is and fit it into the article. Random statements just dropped into the article like this should be deleted with a polite note asking the editor to fit it in somehow. Rgr09 (talk) 04:55, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Added new section on end of series

I added this section because there was still no logical connection between the November 1996 events and Ceppos's column in May 1997. This is supplied mostly by Schou's biography. Although Schou gives important information from interviews with the main figures, his chronology is confusing and hard to follow. I also looked at an article by Pia Hinckle in Columbia Journalism Review, which has a timeline.

Ceppos's May 11 column is an essential part of the article. I realized just yesterday that the original description of the column had several errors, and have redone this part as well. These errors were mainly because the editor had not gone to the original column but had used a description from an article by Barbara Osborn in FAIR's magazine Extra. Ironically, Osborn did not include Ceppos's finding that the series did not include information that contradicted one of its central assertions. Rgr09 (talk) 02:14, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Views on Webb's journalism 2

Moved most of "continuing debate" section here, then renamed it "film" because that's all that's left there. Added comments from reporters and editors who worked with Webb and what they felt his strengths and weaknesses were, 2 from Plain Dealer 2 from Mercury News, all of them cited extensively in works on Webb. Will revise remainder of section to give some evaluations of "Dark Alliance." Rgr09 (talk) 11:24, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Views on Webb's journalism 3

I divided this long section into two: one on Webb's journalism overall, and one specific to views of "dark alliance" Overall, it is important to note that Webb's reporting in other stories was questioned; this can't be hidden, but much of his work won significant awards and the views of those most familiar with his work was overall quite positive. This article is a biography of Webb, so some such summary of overall evaluations of his reporting is important to add.

Of all Webb's work, however, "Dark Alliance" had the most influence on his career, so a separate section summarizing overall views of the series is also justified.

In this section I both added and removed some material. The Chicago Tribune commentary was a dead link; if I can find a live one, I'll put it back, since it is notable commentary in a major paper. The two Schou articles were not presented very clearly; I used them to give Schou's evaluation of the Dark Alliance claims, which I think is notable, considering Schou's knowledge of Webb and of the series. The article seemed to confuse Schou with the Los Angeles Times. Schou's opinion piece was published in the LAT, but that doesn't mean that Schou works for LAT, or that LAT agrees with Schou. It is incorrect to claim, based on Schou's article, that the LAT has recanted its views on Webb or "Dark Alliance". Ditto the Chicago Tribune; it is not even clear what the Trib's original view of the series was.

I revised Corn's comments to reflect his views on the series, which are not that far from Schou's. This was not clear in earlier versions of the article. Corn was familiar with the "Dark Alliance" series, and wrote a long review of the book version; as a major investigative reporter his views are also notable.

I also added relevant quotes from Jeff Leen's article. This article was discussed a while ago on the talk page, with some editors arguing it should not be included. I cannot agree with this. Leen is an important editor, who has overseen a number of series and articles that resulted in Pulitzer prizes; his own work has also contributed to Pulitzer prizes for both the Miami Herald and Washington Post. Leen was a senior reporter at the Miami Herald in the 1980s and wrote a book on the cocaine trade, so he is familiar with the background of the series, and is highly qualified to evaluate the series.

One reason given for excluding Leen's views was the fact that this was an op-ed piece. So was Schou's article and the Chicago trib article and many other sources cited in the article. There is no justification for excluding such writing from an article and I have not hesitated to add such material, here and elsewhere. Another reason seems to have been based on the fact that Leen debated Webb at an IRE conference in 1997. This was characterized on the talk page as a "feud". It is not a feud when two people disagree. Leen cannot be excluded just because he disagreed with Webb. Rgr09 (talk) 03:22, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

References and external links 3

I have moved the links to the investigation reports and congressional hearings from the external links section into the reference section. Most of these are now referred to in the article multiple times, so putting them up with the other frequently cited works seems best.

I have left the links to interviews featuring Webb, and added another to his C-span interview in 1998.

Of the remaining external links, I incorporated a couple in the views on Webb's journalism. The others should mostly not stay and I have deleted them. Some were simply descriptions of Webb's funeral, such as the George Sanchez and Chrisanne Beckner ones. Others were by people who I'm not sure had more than a passing acquaintance with Webb, such as Jeff Cohen. Cockburn and St. Clair simply present an earlier appeal Webb wrote for people to support Giordano's legal case. Giordano is basically a blog post that offers no more than his angry ramblings.

The Brian Covert "tribute", however, turned out to be transcriptions of a speech Webb gave at City College of San Francisco in Feb. 1997 and an interview the next day at the Mercury News office in Sacramento. It is very unclear where these came from or who did them; provenance is much too uncertain to use in the article, but it is still very interesting material well worth a link. Rgr09 (talk) 09:01, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

San Jose to Cupertino is only 15 minutes.

"Offered a choice between working in San Jose under editorial supervision or spot reporting in Cupertino, Webb chose Cupertino, 150 miles from his home." (Reference 50) This sentence implies it is the 150 miles that mattered and not the editorial supervision. San Jose Mercury News and Cupertino are 10.5 miles apart. The above sentence makes no sense or is very weak. source: https://www.google.ca/maps/dir/San+Jose+Mercury+News,+4+North+2nd+Street+%23800,+San+Jose,+CA+95113,+United+States/Cupertino,+CA,+USA/@37.3110503,-121.9766236,13z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x808fcc0a74e019ef:0x66c29ec212a8c7a8!2m2!1d-121.889722!2d37.337568!1m5!1m1!1s0x808fb4571bd377ab:0x394d3fe1a3e178b4!2m2!1d-122.0321823!2d37.3229978!3e0 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.167.55.8 (talk) 14:38, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. The sentence wasn't supposed to imply that the distance was the main reason Webb chose Cupertino, but I have to admit this whole brief section now seems very vague to me. I'll take another look as my time permits. Remember too, that you are looking at driving times in 2014, but Webb was driving in 1997. Note that in 1997 the Mercury News was at 750 Ridder Park Drive, near Brokaw and I-880. It moved back to downtown San Jose in 2014. To really figure Webb's traveling time, you also have to know where Webb's home in Sacramento was. 150 miles came from Schou, p. 165, but the maps I'm now looking at seem to say only 120. Rgr09 (talk) 01:15, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Scope of CIA-OIG report

There is a lot that can be said about the scope of the CIAO-OIG report, but most of it is in the report and does not need to be added into the article. I think that scope in the sense of what the OIG looked for should be in the article. It seems unnecessary to add a description of what was removed in order to declassify the report. Interested readers can look at the link. Please try to avoid adding information that is already in the article. Rgr09 (talk) 06:35, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

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