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GUEST: Nick Schou, award winning investigative reporter for the OC Weekly

It has been a decade this year, since the late Gary Webb, authored a three-part investigative series titled “Dark Alliance,” in the San Jose Mercury News. The series highlighted the connection between the US CIA, the Contras, and Crack Cocaine. The controversial series of reports led major U.S. dailies to attempt to seriously discredit Webb’s reporting. Gary Webb eventually resigned from the San Jose Mercury News after accusing the paper of cowardice for not defending his work vigorously enough against attacks. Depressed and bewildered, the investigative reporter eventually committed suicide in December 2004. “Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb” is a new book by award-winning OC Weekly investigative reporter Nick Schou. Drawing from extensive research and personal interviews with family members, co-workers, critics and supporters, Nick Schou tells the story of Webb’s life and argues that the reporter was betrayed and never got proper credit for what he got right. Schou also investigates the firestorm of controversy that surrounded the “Dark Alliance” series and what it means for the current state of journalism in America. Writer Mike Davis has said of the book, “Here is the true story, brilliantly if sadly told, of the reporter who unmasked one of the most evil conspiracies in American history.”