{"product_id":"dark-alliance-movie-tie-in-edition-by-gary-webb-9781609806217","title":"Dark Alliance: Movie Tie-In Edition","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA major film release called \u003cem\u003eKill the Messenger\u003c\/em\u003e, starring Jeremy Renner and based on this book, prompts the movie tie-in edition of this explosive, true story involving an intrepid reporter, crack cocaine and the highest levels of government.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMajor Motion Picture based on \u003cem\u003eDark Alliance\u003c\/em\u003e and starring Jeremy Renner, \"Kill the Messenger,\" to be released in Fall 2014.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn August 1996, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb stunned the world with a series of articles in the \u003cem\u003eSan Jose Mercury News\u003c\/em\u003e reporting the results of his year-long investigation into the roots of the crack cocaine epidemic in America, specifically in Los Angeles. The series, titled \u003cem\u003eDark Alliance\u003c\/em\u003e, 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGary Webb pushed his investigation even further in his book, \u003cem\u003eDark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion\u003c\/em\u003e. Drawing from then newly declassified documents, undercover DEA audio and videotapes that had never been publicly released, federal court testimony, and interviews, Webb demonstrates how our government knowingly allowed massive amounts of drugs and money to change hands at the expense of our communities.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWebb's own stranger-than-fiction experience is also woven into the book. His excoriation by the media—not because of any wrongdoing on his part, but by an insidious process of innuendo and suggestion that in effect blamed Webb for the implications of the story—had been all but predicted. Webb was warned off doing a CIA expose by a former \u003cem\u003eAssociated Press\u003c\/em\u003e journalist who lost his job when, years before, he had stumbled onto the germ of the \u003cem\u003eDark Alliance\u003c\/em\u003e story. And though internal investigations by both the CIA and the Justice Department eventually vindicated Webb, he had by then been pushed out of the \u003cem\u003eMercury News\u003c\/em\u003e and gone to work for the California State Legislature Task Force on Government Oversight. He died in 2004.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48145132749036,"sku":"9781609806217","price":65.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/products\/dark-alliance-movie-tie-in-edition-by-gary-webb-9781609806217","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}