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The Killing Game: Selected Writings by the author of Dark Alliance
Gary Webb had an inborn journalistic tendency to track down corruption and expose it. For over thirty-four years, he wrote stories about corruption from county, state, and federal levels. He had an almost magnetic effect to these kinds of stories, and it was almost as if the stories found him. It was his gift, and, ultimately, it was his downfall.
He was best known for his story Dark Alliance, written for the San Jose Mercury News in 1996. In it Webb linked the CIA to the crack-cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles during the Iran Contra scandal. His only published book, Dark Alliance is still a classic of contemporary journalism. But his life consisted of much more than this one story, and The Killing Game is a collection of his best investigative stories from his beginning at the Kentucky Post to his end at the Sacramento News & Review. It includes Webb's series at the Kentucky Post on organized crime in the coal industry, at the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Ohio State’s negligent medical board, and on the US military’s funding of first-person shooter video games. The Killing Game is a dedication to his life’s work outside of Dark Alliance, and it’s an exhibition of investigative journalism in its truest form.
He was best known for his story Dark Alliance, written for the San Jose Mercury News in 1996. In it Webb linked the CIA to the crack-cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles during the Iran Contra scandal. His only published book, Dark Alliance is still a classic of contemporary journalism. But his life consisted of much more than this one story, and The Killing Game is a collection of his best investigative stories from his beginning at the Kentucky Post to his end at the Sacramento News & Review. It includes Webb's series at the Kentucky Post on organized crime in the coal industry, at the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Ohio State’s negligent medical board, and on the US military’s funding of first-person shooter video games. The Killing Game is a dedication to his life’s work outside of Dark Alliance, and it’s an exhibition of investigative journalism in its truest form.
384 pages, Paperback
First published April 3, 2001
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About the author
Gary Webb
5 books75 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. If adding books to this author, please use Gary^^Webb.
Gary Stephen Webb was an investigative reporter, focusing on government and private sector corruption and winning more than 30 journalism awards. He was one of six reporters at the San Jose Mercury News to win a 1990 Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting for a series of stories on the collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct during northern California's 1989 earthquake. He also received the 1997 Media Hero Award from the Institute for Alternative Journalism and in 1996 was named Journalist of the Year by the Bay Area Society of Professional Journalists.
In 1998, his book Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion (Seven Stories Press), revealed that for the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to Los Angeles street gangs and funneled millions in drug profits to the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras.
(source: http://www.amazon.com/Gary-Webb/e/B00...)
Gary Stephen Webb was an investigative reporter, focusing on government and private sector corruption and winning more than 30 journalism awards. He was one of six reporters at the San Jose Mercury News to win a 1990 Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting for a series of stories on the collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct during northern California's 1989 earthquake. He also received the 1997 Media Hero Award from the Institute for Alternative Journalism and in 1996 was named Journalist of the Year by the Bay Area Society of Professional Journalists.
In 1998, his book Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion (Seven Stories Press), revealed that for the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to Los Angeles street gangs and funneled millions in drug profits to the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras.
(source: http://www.amazon.com/Gary-Webb/e/B00...)
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 29, 2019
A nice companion to "Dark Alliance" for fans of the great Gary Webb. The book is a collection of Webb's investigative work, and covers a number of subjects. It feels quite dated at times (coal mining corruption in the mid-70's, for example), but still oddly relevant. As they say, past is prologue, and there's nothing new under the sun.
The stories on prescription drugs and the Ohio Medical Board were especially interesting, as they read like the backstory to the opioid epidemic facing the country today. Perhaps if there were more investigative journalists of Gary Webb's competence and courage, such vast tragedies could have been avoided, or mitigated, decades ago.
The stories on prescription drugs and the Ohio Medical Board were especially interesting, as they read like the backstory to the opioid epidemic facing the country today. Perhaps if there were more investigative journalists of Gary Webb's competence and courage, such vast tragedies could have been avoided, or mitigated, decades ago.
November 17, 2014
"The writings of an intrepid investigative reporter", that was Gary Webb. Twenty days ago I discovered this journalist through the Dark Alliance expose linking the CIA, Nicaraguan Contras, and LA street gangs in a series of articles published back in August 1996. It was a rabbit hole of sorts that I have just emerged from after reading Webb's two books and another book about him I feel I know what he was about, real unflinching journalism. The stories in The Killing Game are an eclectic collection but the approach is always hard hitting reporting.
A good read!
A good read!
January 14, 2013
Something about this book urged me to check it out of the library and begin reading. Fascinating reading. Will add more to the review at a later date.
November 26, 2023
****½
American History owes a great debt to Gary Webb because he had the tenacity and foresight to properly memorialize The Reagan Administration's cesspool of buffoonery; Webb documented Reagan-era's high crimes & treason when literally Nobody else would (to the point of compromising his own well being).
Robert Parry's Afterword is requisite reading for fans of Webb's essential Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.
It's impossible for me to read Webb's Cocaining-Contras series Dark Alliance and not be bothered, or unaffect ur head space -- instinctively doling frequent doses of cortisone via mood response/emotional processing. Even though this text features investigative reporter Gary Webb's non-Dark Alliance writing (specifically, prior and post-his time with the backstabbing chickenshit-enterprise San Jose Mercury News), there's still plenty of Dark Alliance coverage here (some of it repetitive): with every series Introduction, one of Webb's former colleagues offers brief retrospective, ultimately spotlighting Webb's greatest accomplishment.
All eleven of Webb's [archival] investigative series are remarkable; albeit some more than other ...Nevertheless, more than half are absolute must-reads imo:
American History owes a great debt to Gary Webb because he had the tenacity and foresight to properly memorialize The Reagan Administration's cesspool of buffoonery; Webb documented Reagan-era's high crimes & treason when literally Nobody else would (to the point of compromising his own well being).
Robert Parry's Afterword is requisite reading for fans of Webb's essential Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.
It's impossible for me to read Webb's Cocaining-Contras series Dark Alliance and not be bothered, or unaffect ur head space -- instinctively doling frequent doses of cortisone via mood response/emotional processing. Even though this text features investigative reporter Gary Webb's non-Dark Alliance writing (specifically, prior and post-his time with the backstabbing chickenshit-enterprise San Jose Mercury News), there's still plenty of Dark Alliance coverage here (some of it repetitive): with every series Introduction, one of Webb's former colleagues offers brief retrospective, ultimately spotlighting Webb's greatest accomplishment.
All eleven of Webb's [archival] investigative series are remarkable; albeit some more than other ...Nevertheless, more than half are absolute must-reads imo:
• The Coal Connection (1980) Kentucky Post
• I create Life (1983) Cleveland Plain Dealer
• Doctoring The Truth (1985) Kentucky Post
• DWB (Driving While Black) (1999) Esquire
• The Mighty Wurlitzer Plays On (2004) Into The Buzzsaw: Chapter 7
• Red Light, Green Cash (2004) Sacramento News of Review
The Arnold (2004) High Time magazine -- equally important, if only somewhat dated.
August 23, 2024
What a great investigative journalist Gary Webb was. If we only had Dark Alliance he would still be one of the most relevant journalists of the last 50 years. But this adds a lovely complement to that work, as we see Gary hard at work chasing corruption everywhere he could find it.
He is missed. People like Whitney Webb and Richard Medhurst have taken the baton.
He is missed. People like Whitney Webb and Richard Medhurst have taken the baton.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews