He adds that..."...were looking for something different when we encountered the evidence on Contra-cocaine trafficking. We were trying to figure out how the Contras were sustaining themselves in the field after Congress cut off the CIA's financing for their war.
"We were, in the old-fashioned journalistic parlance, 'following the money.' The problem was the money led, in part, to the reality that all the major Contra organizations were collaborating with drug traffickers."
"...what Leen says is not true. Leen makes no reference to the groundbreaking AP story in 1985 or other disclosures in the ensuing years. He just insists that 'the extraordinary proof' was lacking -- which it may have been for him, given his lackluster abilities."
And Parry makes a more fundamental point, that Leen is wrong when advises that in big-time journalism, an "extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof":
"A different rule actually governs American journalism -- that journalists need 'extraordinary proof' if a story puts the US government or an 'ally' in a negative light, but pretty much anything goes when criticizing an 'enemy.'"
Indeed, recent history is full of such examples. Webb tried to ignore this double standard, by investigating links between the CIA, US foreign policy and the drug war. None of his conclusions were comforting to Washington, elite interests or corporate media -- and that is what precisely made him a target.
As Parry's piece concludes:
"Perhaps all one needs to know about the sorry state of today's mainstream journalism is that Jeff Leen is the Washington Post's assistant managing editor for investigations, and Gary Webb is no longer with us."
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