Press Play with Madeleine Brand
The Story of Gary Webb
The new film “Kill The Messenger” is based on the true story of investigative journalist Gary Webb. He famously published a series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News that linked the CIA to America’s crack-cocaine epidemic of the 1980s. Webb and his stories came under intense scrutiny, from both the government and rival newspapers.
By Madeleine Brand • • 1 min readThe new film “Kill The Messenger” is based on the true story of investigative journalist Gary Webb. He famously published a series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News that linked the CIA to America’s crack-cocaine epidemic of the 1980s. Webb and his stories came under intense scrutiny, from both the government and rival newspapers. A decade later, he committed suicide. As KCRW’s Saul Gonzalez reports, some of the people who scrutinized Webb the most now have mixed emotions about how they handled the situation.
