LSU’s Manship school dean, Jerry Ceppos is portrayed by Hollywood actor Oliver Platt in a new movie out Friday titled, “Kill the Messenger.”
In the mid-nineties, Ceppos was the executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News which ran a three-part series suggesting connections between the C.I.A and the country’s crack-cocaine epidemic. 
The film stars Jeremy Renner as investigative journalist, Gary Webb who wrote the series titled, “Dark Alliance.”  Critics later discredited many of Webb’s conclusions and the newspaper re-reported the series in a letter to its readers. 
Ceppos stood by that decision believing the Mercury News “overreached”.   The controversy essentially ended Webb’s career and he committed suicide in 2004.​
Before the movie released Ceppos asked the studio for a copy of “Kill the Messenger” but they refused.
Ceppos says he is also surprised that the director did not contact him before the movie released.
“Being a journalist it strikes me as very puzzling that they didn’t to the best of my knowledge, interview any of the principles,” said Ceppos. “That part bothers me but from what I’ve read from the reviews, I don’t think anybody will mistake this for documentary nonfiction journalism.”