Ambitious writer's suicide
All the noise about Hunter S. Thompson's suicide has obscured a story that is, in my opinion, much more interesting: the fall of San Jose Mercury-News investigative reporter Gary Webb. Webb became nationally famous for reporting links between the CIA and drug trafficking, but when some problems were found with his stories, the newspaper published retractions and eventually forced Webb to resign. His career in a tailspin, he eventually killed himself in December, 2004. Today the Mercury-News published a long and fascinating portrait of Webb describing his career and his downfall.
1 comment:
=v= I hate to be picky (really), but I don't think it's accurate to write that "problems were found with his stories." Webb was criticized more for inferences people made from his words, not from what he actually wrote, which remains pretty solid.
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