Kill the Messenger

Nick Schou
October 2006     ISBN: 1560259302

This is the story of the tragic death of Gary Webb, the controversial newspaper reporter who committed suicide in December 2004. It was his 1996 Dark Alliance series--published by the San Jose Mercury News--on the so-called CIA/crack cocaine connection that created a firestorm of controversy and led to his resignation from the paper amid escalating attacks on his work by the mainstream media.

Author and investigative journalist Nick Schou was the only reporter to significantly advance Webb's expos�. Drawing on exhaustive research and personal interviews with Webb's family, colleagues, and both supporters and critics, Kill the Messenger argues convincingly that Webb's editors betrayed him despite mounting evidence that his stories were correct. Schou examines what Webb's death and Dark Alliance's aftermath says about journalism in America.

Nick Schou writes for the LA Weekly and OC Weekly and lives in Long Beach, California.