I remember when Webb's story came out and the L.A. Times, my hometown paper, scrutinized the story. This was back in 1996 when the LAT had a big investigative

I remember when Webb's story came out and the L.A. Times, my hometown paper, scrutinized the story. This was back in 1996 when the LAT had a big investigative staff and was winning prizes at the same rate as the NYT. The LAT's take on Webb's story was important because South Central LA was an epicenter of the crack wars, and some of the characters in Webb's story were LA dealers. They basically shot the story down. The recollection of one of the lead LAT reporters rings true: “As an L.A. Times reporter, we saw this series in the San Jose Mercury News and ... kind of put it under a microscope. And we did it in a way that most of us who were involved in it, I think, would look back on that and say it was overkill. We had this huge team of people at the L.A. Times and kind of piled on to one lone muckraker up in Northern California.” This reaction to a new story is reminiscent of pg's idea of a "middlebrow dismissal" -- spending much energy poking holes in something new, but not really trying to pursue what's interesting about the new idea. Edited to add: An excellent summary of this story by veteran LA reporter Marc Cooper, on the occasion of Webb's death: http://www.laweekly.com/2004-12-16/news/gary-webb-rip/ http://www.laweekly.com/2004-12-16/news/gary-webb-rip/