As has been written here many times by people who knew Gary Webb, he fought on for nearly another ten years, but did not feel he had ever regained his one life's work, reporting.

My measure of guilt in his death is wondering why he wasn't in Bolivia for the school of authentic journalism, and never asking.

I won't be complicit in the next death.

For the next authentic journalists that prove themselves with hard work and courage, and are rewarded with total exclusion from the establisment media, we can do something.  We can organize.

We can't give everyone who says they are an authentic journalist a salary.  Narco News' j-school and the Fund for Authentic Journalism are the best we have for nurturing the new true reporters and eloquent truth-tellers out there, while they try to build their skills and find a means of subsistence.

But for a person with Gary Webb's proven ability and commitment, how could we (civil society or concerned whackos or people who give a damn) not offer what the media establishment wouldn't?

And there will be others who prove their commitment to truth and justice in the corporate world.  J-school alumni and professors Reed Lindsay and George Sanchez, to give just two examples that come to mind instantly, are "making it" in the establishment media, but if they reach the level where they have the time & freedom, platform, and resources to do a series with the facts and force of the Dark Alliance... what then?

As one of our own poetic spirits, Amy Casada-Alaniz, wrote above:

the illusion that we are separate & alone is one we can fight back against

Gary himsef did the math in his appeal for the old Narco News legal defense fund, published by Counterpunch in 2001 March.

I understand that Narco News needs only about $13,000 more to be able to have the most difficult stage of the lawsuit process - that which it faces immediately - handled with professional legal assistance, thus allowing Al to continue expending his energy and time in reporting to us the facts. One person of means could solve this problem with a check. Two dozen people giving $500 could do it. 130 people giving a hundred dollars... you can do the math: If half of Narco News' readers give one dollar each, Narco News will keep publishing.

The numbers change with the case, of course, but this is the kind of thinking we need to be organized enough, sufficiently connected with each other, to bring a measure of justice to people who have lost their jobs telling, so well, the truth on behalf of justice.

I don't know if a web site and a salary would have been enough for the great Gary Webb, who seemed to crave a return to the daily newspaper work that enabled him to do the great reporting that he did.

But it should have been offered, to one of the best, hardest-working investigative reporters we've ever seen.

To Gary.

And to those who carry his flame within them.