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GARY WEBB,THE embattled reporter of a controversial San Jose Mercury News series linking the CIA to a Los Angeles drug operation, was honored as "Journalist of the Year" in a ceremony that was clouded by at least one complaint.
The award was given by the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, some of whose members, it was learned, called the board's attention to the choice in view of the flap over the series.
One of them, San Francisco Examiner managing editor Sharon Rosenhause, said in an interview she objected to the board about its decision based on the fact that the series "is a work under question." "Three very reputable newspapers have expressed doubts and questions about the stories," she added. "There were other candidates for the award."
Recently, Rosenhause took strong exception to a Mercury News story wrongly predicting that the Examiner would shortly be folded in a Hearst Corp. buyout of the San Francisco Chronicle, with whom the Examiner is in a joint operating agreement.
But she insisted her view of the award to Webb had nothing to do with the Mercury News' sale story. And I told this to the [SPJ] board," she said.
Webb was defended in statements by board members Bruce B. Brugmann, editor and publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and Erna Smith, chairman of the department of journalism at San Francisco State University.
Brugmann praised the reporter for his "courage and enterprise" in writing a story with "great impact."
Smith said that when she became aware of the conflict over the drug series she found no...