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Port Truckers Return to the Picket Line p.3 San Pedro Waterfront Arts District Promotes Street p.11
Photo by Slobodan Dimitrov
POLAHS Principal Scotti Returns School Turmoil Offers Lessons for a Private-Public Partnership By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor
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POLAHS’s Board of Trustees were able to convince Principal Tom Scotti to return following a four-hour meeting Nov. 7. Photo by Terelle Jerricks.
n air of calm rested upon the Port of Los Angeles High School campus on Monday Nov. 10, following the reinstatement of the beloved Principal Tom Scotti. It was a welcome change from the heated twoweek conflict between parents, teachers and students, and the school’s board of trustees. Scotti received a hero’s welcome after an emotionally charged Friday. Students wearing yellow shirts chanted his name as POLAHS Calm Restored for Now/ to p. 2
November 13 - 26, 2014
The Messenger Returns/ to p. 6
The Local Publication You Actually Read
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lmost two decades after the reporter Gary Webb exposed a connection between the CIA and crack cocaine in America, Hollywood chimed in with a major movie This one has all the ingredients of a dreamed-up Hollywood blockbuster: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist uncovers a big story involving drugs, the CIA and a guerrilla army. Despite threats and intimidation, he writes an explosive exposé and catches national attention. But the fates shift. Our reporter’s story is torn apart by the country’s leading media; he is betrayed by his own newspaper. Though the big story turns out to be true, the writer commits suicide and becomes a cautionary tale. Hold on, though. The above is not fiction. Kill the Messenger, an actual film coming soon to a theater near you, is the true story of Sacramento-based investigative reporter Gary Webb, who earned both acclaim and notoriety for his 1996 San Jose Mercury News series that revealed the CIA had turned a blind eye to the U.S.backed Nicaraguan contras trafficking crack cocaine in South Central Los Angeles and elsewhere in urban America in the 1980s. One of the firstever newspaper investigations to be published on the Internet, Webb’s story gained a massive readership and stirred up a firestorm of controversy and repudiation. After being deemed a pariah by media giants like The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, and being disowned by his own paper, Webb eventually came to work in August 2004 at Sacramento News & Review. Four months later, he committed suicide at age 49. He left behind a grieving family—and some trenchant questions: Why did the media giants attack him so aggressively, thereby protecting the government secrets he revealed? Why did he decide to end
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