Richard Jewell is a great story, a tragedy that needed to be told. It is a shameful episode of both media hysteria and the excesses of inept law enforcement and abuse of an accused citizen. In this story, the media is shown rushing to judgement and convicting an innocent person in the press and on TV, a person who is ignorant of the power of the press, and the power that the FBI has to crush persons who are accused or suspected of crimes. The FBI repeatedly ignores the rights of the accused and tries to trick Jewell into confessing without meaning to, with blatant disregard for both ethics and the law itself. The corrosion that was so pervasive in 1996 is still there- and has grown to immense proportions.
The other element to this story, the lack of care taken by the news media is also relevant today. In this story the reporter who wrote the story naming Jewell as the main suspect eventually discovered the truth and attempted to correct the error as best she could unlike today- the media are dangerously taking sides on political issues rather than reporting or doing the job of a journalist. This is destroying trust of the media as surely as the politicization of the FBI and Justice Department will destroy the faith in the Federal government itself. Mr. Eastwood's film is sounding an alarm. Will anyone listen ?
Review of Richard Jewell
