Indiana

Indiana was where Gary Webb was attending a party at his best friend's house in Indianapolis when the Dark Alliance series was published online on August 18, 1996. Webb excused himself, went into a bedroom, plugged in his laptop, and dialed into the Mercury News Web site to watch the series go live.¹

Publication Night

At 2:00 A.M. on August 18, 1996, Webb watched as a picture of a man smoking crack, superimposed upon the seal of the Central Intelligence Agency, drew itself on the screen. "After more than a year of work, 'Dark Alliance' was finally out." The Indianapolis location placed Webb far from the newsroom in San Jose, California on the night his career-defining work went public, a distance that would prove symbolic as the story took on a life of its own through the Internet.²