U.S. Journalism's Shameful Anniversary

U.S. Journalism's Shameful Anniversary
By Robert Parry
December 9, 2005


One year ago, reporter Gary Webb – his life in ruins – killed himself with a handgun. The tragedy made him the final victim of a long-running cover-up protecting the Reagan-Bush administration’s tolerance of drug trafficking by its client army, the Nicaraguan contras.

But Webb’s death also could be blamed on the fecklessness of modern American journalism. The nation’s leading newspapers had driven the 49-year-old father of three to his desperate act rather than admit that they had bungled one of the biggest stories of the Reagan-Bush era – the contra-cocaine scandal.
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But – on the anniversary of Webb’s death – it should be noted that his great gift to American history was that he – along with angry African-American citizens – forced the government to admit some of the worst crimes ever condoned by any White House: the protection of drug smuggling into the United States as part of a covert war against a country, Nicaragua, that represented no real threat to Americans.

The truth was ugly. Certainly the major news organizations would have come under criticism themselves if they had done their job and laid out this troubling story to the American people. Conservative defenders of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush would have been sure to howl in protest.

But the real tragedy of Webb’s historic gift – and of his tragic end – is that because of the major news media’s callowness and cowardice, this dark chapter of the Reagan-Bush era remains unknown to many Americans.
(snip/)

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/120905.html

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