OT: Gary Webb Movie Will Show Him 'Abandoned'

Peter Fokes

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May 18, 2008, 9:33:20 PM5/18/08

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Screenwriter: Gary Webb Movie Will Show Him 'Abandoned'

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003785696

Webb was a prominent investigative reporter for the Mercury News when
the paper published his series on CIA involvement in the crack
epidemic in 1996. After the package ran, other news outlets began to
criticize the work and attempt to poke holes in much of Webb's theory.

Eventually, his editors also found fault in the series, ran an
apologetic editor's note, and demoted Webb to a suburban beat. He quit
the paper in 1997, spending several years in a series of
non-journalism jobs before taking up with an alternative weekly in
Sacramento, Ca., in 2004.

But just months after starting at that paper, he was found dead from
two gunshot wounds to the head in his home. It was ruled a suicide.

Since the series ran, and Webb's death, critics have continued to
question his work and claim some of his reporting was off. But many
others, including former colleagues and author Schou, contend he was
unfairly treated and that his series was a good piece of journalism
that exposed CIA misdeeds.

Landesman said he planned to pursue that side of the story in the
screenplay, similar to Schou's account in the book.

"We are once again making these deals with the Devil," Landesman said
about today's government and CIA activities. "Gary had stumbled on
something. Webb discovered this massive industry at the time that
dove-tailed with the very thing our government wanted to snuff out
with a war on drugs."

He said the fact that other news outlets took such harsh shots at Webb
is also part of the story. "The New York Times, The Washington Post
and the L.A Times came after Webb in a way that was deeply personal
and politically agenda-ized and systematically destroyed him and his
story," he said. "Webb had the audacity to report it like any other
story, not understanding what the ramifications would be."

Landesman, who has also written a screenplay for a film about Deep
Throat source Mark Felt, expects to have the Webb screenplay finished
within six months.

Interview with Landesman on NPR re: story on sex slave trade:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1617594

Gary Webb on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6dHqP9wc3k

PF