Talk:Gary Webb - Misplaced Pages

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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)

More on suicide

How to describe Webb's suicide is the most common source of changes to the article, almost all of them attempting to impose editors' belief that Webb did not commit suicide by removing the word suicide or putting it in scare quotes. Without any discussion on the talk page or sources in the article, this type of NPOV editing should just be reverted. Rgr09 (talk) 03:50, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

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