Richard Jewell has died-The media did him wrong

[Sir Richard F. Burton]

I always felt bad for him he was the security guard who was a hero during the Atlanta Olympic bombing and the the media made him out as the bomber. Die at 44 today.

LINK (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070829/ap_on_re_us/obit_jewell)

[RP_McMurphy]

He is a case study for the power of Law Enforcement and Media to destroy a good man.

[The Old School JPS]

Law enforcement investigated him as they should have. It would have been irresponsible not to have done so at that point. And they did the right thing by publicly clearing him once they were able to determine that it was not him. They would not have had to do that if they had been left alone to conduct their investigation without all the intrusive media coverage.

What is unfortunate is the way that the media portrayed that story. That rush to put anything on the air about something got to the point of being pathetic and irresponsible (and often uninformative) long ago. Jewell was a casualty of that, IMO.

[surveyor]

Based on the logic, the media did Valerie Plame wrong, too, no?

Of course not.

Reno later apologized (big deal) for the fact that Jewell's name was leaked to the media as a suspect.
The ones who did Jewell wrong were the one(s) who leaked his name to the media to begin with.
The ensuing media frenzy might not have occurred had the leak not occurred.

[Will Lavender]

I read Lone Wolf, the book about Eric Rudolph, and there's some interesting stuff in there about Jewell.

The media kind of sketched Rudoph as if he were this heroic figure, this John Rambo-type who was so adept at evasion and living off the land. The truth, according to the book, is this:

He was as nutty as a fruitcake.

The reason nobody could catch him (one of the reasons) is because he would act with no rhyme or reason. He made his bombs differently each time, he put the bombs in completely different places, and when he was in the wilderness he acted so impulsively (read: erratically) that it was impossible for them to pick up his scent.

The author does talk about some of the intense things that Rudolph would do in the wilderness to throw law enforcement off, but mostly he was the kind of guy who would look at a ridge and start walking it. Then he would get to the end of the ridge and just walk back over it. When asked afterward how he survived, uncaught, for so long, his answers are startlingly vague and loopy for a man of his (supposed) outdoor acumen.

[Jeff Craddock]

Based on the logic, the media did Valerie Plame wrong, too, no?


A case could be made that the media--Robert Novak in particular--did do Plame wrong. IIRC, the CIA asked Novak not to publish her identity, but he chose to do so anyway. Novak called the CIA request "a very weak request", but you've got to wonder how self-serving that was. What in the world is a very weak request from the CIA? There were other media figures--Michael Cooper is one--who had the name but declined to go with the story.

What was done to Jewel differs because, to my knowledge, the FBI never asked the media to hold the story.

[surveyor]

A case could be made that the media--Robert Novak in particular--did do Plame wrong. IIRC, the CIA asked Novak not to publish her identity, but he chose to do so anyway. There were other media figures--Michael Cooper is one--who had the name but declined to go with the story.

What was done to Jewel differs because, to my knowledge, the FBI never asked the media to hold the story.

In both cases, had government / law enforcement officials not leaked either identity, there'd be no story to hold or go on.

Why divulge such to the press with the condition that it not be published?

[Jeff Craddock]

In both cases, had government / law enforcement officials not leaked either identity, there'd be no story to hold or go on.

Why divulge such to the press with the condition that it not be published?

In the case of Plame, the leak didn't come from the CIA, but instead from Richard Armitage/Karl Rove/fill in the blank. The CIA tried to stop it, citing national security concerns, but Novak chose to go with it.

[surveyor]

Perhaps, but if the names hadn't been divulged, there would have been no story in either case. Who divulged them is less relevant than the fact they were divulged.

The result to Jewell was much more severe than the result to Plame. Jewell was unjustly smeared as complicit in a crime that he was later cleared of, but restoring one's good name is often times as easy as putting the feathers back on a chicken.

[The Old School JPS]

Based on the logic, the media did Valerie Plame wrong, too, no?

Of course not.

Reno later apologized (big deal) for the fact that Jewell's name was leaked to the media as a suspect.
The ones who did Jewell wrong were the one(s) who leaked his name to the media to begin with.
The ensuing media frenzy might not have occurred had the leak not occurred.

Perhaps - if someone in law enforcement did in fact intentionally leak Jewell's name. I suspect that did happen, probably, but it may well not have. And even at that, journalists have free will the same as the rest of us; they can exercise discretion over what they do and don't print or broadcast. Personally I wish the media were more responsible in what they chose to print and broadcast.

[Jeff Craddock]

Perhaps, but if the names hadn't been divulged, there would have been no story in either case. Who divulged them is less relevant than the fact they were divulged.

The result to Jewell was much more severe than the result to Plame. Jewell was unjustly smeared as complicit in a crime that he was later cleared of, but restoring one's good name is often times as easy as putting the feathers back on a chicken.

Regarding the first paragraph....true up to a point, but the CIA made a specific request to the ONLY media figure willing to divulge the name--remember, others had it as well--and was rebuffed. This really does shift the onus to Novak's shoulders. He could have held on to the information.

But I absolutely agree with your second paragraph. Not only was he smeared, but his heroism got lost in the shuffle. He was portrayed as some kind of frustrated bumpkin, simultaneously trying to portray himself as a hero by finding the bomb he had planted, while at the same time trying to strike back at a system that had dealth him a bad hand. Both, of course, turned out to be far from the truth.