Posted on 12/08/2019 6:15:45 AM PST by Rummyfan
This week marks the premiere of Clint Eastwood's latest directorial outing: Richard Jewell claims to tell the truth about the lowly security guard who was wrongly overhauled — in the span of a few deadlines and headlines — from hero to terrorist following the Atlanta Summer Olympics bombing.
"Claims" because we should be wary of "based on a true story" cinema, even if the director is a national treasure and the story bolsters our justifiable prejudices — in this case, against the manipulative elite media. Because while Richard Jewell was blameless, Richard Jewell may not be — but more on that later...
We can argue, in hindsight, whether or not Woodward and Bernstein's investigation into what, in world-historical terms, most closely resembles a bungled frat boy prank against a rival house, ultimately proved Good for the Nation. What's indisputable is the profound harm created by the post-Watergate deification of journalists. Ever-metastasizing "J-schools" spat out tens of thousands of earnest-yet-craven graduates who viewed reportage as a more glamorous, macho species of social work. They'd change the world rather than merely write about it, and if they had to lie a little, or a lot. Well, it was For a Good Cause (and, not incidentally, the potent promise of a Pulitzer Prize.)
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
You have to have a code book to decipher Steyn’s article.
“...the accuracy of the onscreen representation of one of the film’s characters, journalist Kathy Scruggs, is being called into question. (...)
The journalist, portrayed as loud, brash and hunting for “something crimey going on anywhere,” offers to sleep with FBI agent Tom Shaw (played by Jon Hamm) in exchange for information about the investigation. (...)
According to Kevin Riley, the current editor-in-chief of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, there is no evidence that this transaction ever happened. Raising additional concern, says Riley, is the reality that Scruggs is not able to provide her own account of the events and defend herself in light of the film’s narrative positioning. Scruggs died in 2001 of an overdose of prescription drugs.”
Mark did not write it.
Sudden onset Old-Timers here...
Does anyone remember the name of the female columnist from the NY Post who was involved in Jewell’s lawsuit?
“Mark did not write it.”
So glad you clarified that. I’d have gone on for a while wondering why he would have been married in a Lilly Pulitzer dress.
Ace In The Hole showed a gritty, seedy side to everyday people that audiences may not have been comfortable with.
Something like ‘Carnival Alley’ that showed the rotten side of the carney business was ok because no one expected to relate to those people.
You too??
I thought I was the only one.
Mark Steyn didn’t write the article. A woman named Kathy Shaidle did. What I think she’s saying is that the movie presents a scene where an ACJ reporter exchanges sex with an FBI agent investigating Richard Jewell. There’s no proof that actually happened, and so a reporter (now deceased) is needlessly smeared to give the movie sizzle and added weight for disliking the antagonists. Shaidle argues (reasonably) that that undermines what audiences take from Eastwood’s movie.
She uses the movie Ace in the Hole to show how readers and audiences are manipulated by the stories they read and the movies they watch when the truth (and nothing but) should be enough.
Read this account of the personality of Kathy Scruggs by her friends. Clint may not be slandering her.
Reading the article further confirms Steyns assessment. That she was NOT the sleep around kind. I guess that’s the premise of the movie although I haven’t seen it so I’m taking Steyns word for it.
Thanks for the link.
Sounds like a hot mess.
I recall the hacked emails from STRATFOR in which a reporter was ordered to sleep with a source if that's what it took.
Interesting. I’d like to know more of the details. Now with the movie, we might see some reprints of specific evidence.
Andrea Peyser?
I found the whole piece to be an absurd “purity test” imposed on the movie.
I get Sheidle's point. Scruggs is not around to defend herself. Fair enough.
But quoting the current editor-in-chief as her source that what Eastwood portrays as happening didn't happen isn't good enough for me.
I would like to know where Eastwood got the idea that the reporter was sleeping with the FIB Agent.
Who do you trust?
She definitely sounds like she was a crazy-woman. You can’t put anything past crazy, multiple drug-using (prescribed or not) people.
Her FRIENDS were calling her crazy, hard-living, hard-playing, and obsessed with crime stories and getting the story first. Clint’s portrayal of her doesn’t sound made up from no evidence.
I’m pretty sure in the 21st century you can say anything about a person and it’s their responsibility to prove it DIDN’T happen.
Innocent until proven guilty WAS a good concept. In fact, it’s the media that killed it.
Friendly fire got her.
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