Gary Webb (August 31, 1955 – December 10, 2004) was a prize-winning American investigative journalist.
Webb was best known for his 1996 "Dark Alliance" series of articles written for the San Jose Mercury News and later published as a book. In the three-part series, Webb investigated Nicaraguans linked to the CIA-backed Contras who had allegedly smuggled cocaine into the U.S. which was then distributed as crack cocaine into Los Angeles and funneled profits to the Contras. Webb also alleged that this influx of Nicaraguan supplied cocaine sparked and significantly fueled the widespread crack epidemic that swept through urban areas. According to Webb, the CIA was aware of the cocaine transactions and the large shipments of drugs into the U.S. by the Contra personnel and directly aided drug dealers to raise money for the Contras.
Webb's reporting generated a large controversy and the Mercury News backed away from the story, effectively ending Webb's career as a mainstream media journalist. In 2004, Webb was found dead from two gunshot wounds to the head, which the coroner's office judged a suicide.
Webb was born to a military family in Corona, California. At 15, Webb began writing editorials for his suburban Indianapolis high school newspaper. At the height of the protests against the Vietnam War, he created his first controversy when he criticized the use of a female drill team to rally students for the war. Webb attended journalism school at Northern Kentucky University, where he was on staff at the student newspaper The Northerner, but dropped out. He started his professional career at the Kentucky Post, then worked as a statehouse correspondent for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Webb found a lifelong passion in investigating government and private sector corruption. In 1988, Webb joined the San Jose Mercury News as a staff writer. He helped expose freeway retrofitting problems in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and wrote stories about computer software problems at the California DMV.
