A Crack in the Story - NBC Dateline (13 June 1997)

[@Ricorican77]

Gary Webb was a true hero

[@09rja]

Where this thing went off the rails is the exaggerated claims. At Webb's own paper, people working to verify this story called 30 cocaine experts......and not one of them agreed with the notion that the Contras or Nicaraguans in general played a significant role in the crack epidemic. If Webb had told the story the facts supported (i.e. a Nicaraguan dealer sympathetic to the Contras donated may 50-100k to them)......it might have saved his career. However, the story would have likely been ignored.

[@ogdenwatanabe7612]

Question: Did Dateline ever do a story where it independently fact-checked the research Gary Webb did? Or, is this the only reporting they did at the time? If so, this story is, and isn't, "fake news." Fake news in the fact that NBC is cherry picking what information it is reporting. If anyone can direct me to any mainstream news media's reporting of this subject in the late-90's, early-2000's, it would be appreciated👍

[@09rja]

Within months of Webb's story breaking, the NY Times & the LA Times called the story a hoax.