Scruggs was 43 years old at the time of her death. ', there is no evidence that Scruggs slept with anyone. With The Good Doctor Losing A Character, How Worried Should Fans Be For The Season 6 Finale? After Richard Jewell was no longer a suspect, his battle continued. But in the end, it actually did screw up the investigation because nobody among the FBI supervisors had any intention of letting word out that Richard Jewell was a suspect.. It was the early 1980s when Scruggs arrived in Anderson to be an education reporter. Kathy Scruggs would walkinto the Independent Mail newsroom anddrop her purse and notebook on her desk, a daily effort that caused two loud, distinct thuds. "Contrary to a swath of recent headlines, I do not believe that Kathy 'traded sex for tips,'" Wilde wrote. Thats just bullshit.. She was never at peace as she was facing possible jail time together with the media blaming her for destroying Jewells life and reputation. That wouldve been a fun movie. The Georgia Court of Appeals dismissed the Jewell case against the AJC in 2011. We further demand that you add a prominent disclaimer to the film to that effect.". Burns her source, breaking her promise to be off the record and jeopardizing an ongoing investigation. Yeah Kathy Scruggs and AJC said they only reported the truth - that Jewell was being investigated. It crushed her like a june bug on the sidewalk.. The trouble is, that character sounds a lot more interesting than what we get in Richard Jewell, a character we first meet when she storms into the AJC newsroom, wearing a gold necklace that says KATHY, flipping the bird to fellow reporters (theyre jealous, apparently) and telling a colleague that shes considering getting breast implants. Richard Jewell was under FBI scrutiny for about three months before he was cleared. She became popular in the 1990s for breaking the story that the FBI was investigating security guard Richard Jewell as a possible suspect in the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics bombing. According to the Vanity Fair article, Jewells phone number was leaked online and he received thousands of calls a day from people threatening him. It starts with them in a conference room conducting an interrogation of Jewell. When Jewell died of a heart attack in 2007, he at least got to see the real bomber, Eric Rudolph, go to prison (six life sentences, plus 120 years). Kathy had an elder brother called Lewis Scruggs Jr. who worked in the insurance business. Scruggs was the Atlanta Constitution-Journal reporter who first wrote about . But she was a good reporter. On Thursday, Ray defended the filmexplaining that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution seems to be pulling focus to one single minute in a movie thats 129 minutes long. Wilde also tweeted to respond to the controversy, saying,I do not believe Kathy traded sex for tips and it was never my intention to suggest she had. Ray and Brenner, among others, claim that the outsize focus on the Scruggs scene is a deliberate effort to deflect from the real story: the Atlanta Journal-Constitutions flawed, and destructive, reporting on Jewell. An article published on Columbia colleges website entitled Richard Jewell Case Study, discussed Scruggs more and showed her in a more professional manner. There was NO evidence to support a storyline that Ms. Scruggs traded sex for tips about Richard. For our 29th annual Hollywood cover, a dozen captivating young stars gather for the after-party of our dreams. Shestruggled with chronic health issues and had been on medical leavefrom the newspaper for about a year when she died, Kiss said. Theyre one of Hollywoods brightest starsand most troubled actors. The Idaho Murders, Part 1: How 4 College Kids Lived and Loved. People who knew her called her a true journalist. The trial by the media seemed vicious and not shown nearly as intense in the film. I probably will wind up watching it. Unfortunately, Scruggs can't come forward to defend herself, either: She died in 2001 at the age of 42from an overdose of prescription pain pills, according to Poytner. The movie focuses on the security guard who was heralded for saving lives when a bomb went off in Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park in 1996, but who later became a suspect in the bombing. And she would get frustrated if people were keeping something from her. Later, movie-Scruggs is moved to tears at a Jewell press conference, apparently humbled by the Jewells plight and ashamed at her own actions the movies way of showing that Scruggs had learned a lesson about being so aggressive (uppity?). Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Want to get a room or just go to my car? Scruggs asks after he reveals Jewells name. "The AJCs reporter is reduced to a sex-trading object in the film, the letter states, according to AJC. While the movie portrays an FBI case agent leaking Jewell's name to Atlanta Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs, who has since died, there is no basis for the claim. It might be a valuable discussion to have, whether Scruggs, Martz, and the AJC erred in running with the Jewell-as-prime-suspect story, even if it was well-sourced, true, and okayed before publication. Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times wrote, An accurate movie script about a female reporter would involve her being constantly propositioned or harassed by people she covers, while being invited to evening meetings that somehow turn into involuntary dates with sources, and bombarded with rape threats on Twitter. Added Melissa Gomez of the Los Angeles Times, Hollywood has, for a long time, portrayed female journalists as sleeping with sources to do their job. The FBIs theory was that Jewell left these bombs so that he could be the one to find them and gain hero status. Moreover, of all the players who deserve scrutiny in this saga, why demonize the one who, at the very least, did sourced, factual reporting? By then, Scruggs had been dead for a decade. The Independent Mail is seeking a copy of the letter from Lavely & Singer, the California law firm that sent it on behalf of the AJC and the newspaper's parent corporation, Cox Enterprises. She was blamed for ruining Jewells life who was once considered a hero. She was charming and kind, generous and profane, according to Tony Kiss, a former colleague at the newspaper in Anderson, South Carolina, who became her longtimefriend. Mike King, a former Atlanta Journal-Constitution editor who worked with Scruggs for about eight years, said that, save for that glaring implication, Richard Jewell largely seems to get Scruggs right. Kathy Scruggs herself wrote follow-up stories about Jewell's shabby treatment and interviewed criminal profilers about how criminal profiling had been mishandled in the Jewell case. They editorialized wildly and printed assumptions as facts. That would be an appalling and misogynistic dismissal of the difficult work she did. Author Robert Coram had a front-row seat to Scruggss dealings with law enforcement in the mid '90s. Eric Rudolph, an American domestic terrorist, was later found to have been responsible for setting off the bomb, which killed one person and injured 111 other people at the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta in July 1996. The small changes here and there are understandable because its a film that needs to entertain as much as its trying to inform. Related: Lauren Snchez (Jeff Bezos Girlfriend), Age, Children, Husband, Family, Net Worth, Journalist. Tom Brokaw, who said the FBI probably had enough to convict Jewell but were just trying to collect all the evidence, does get a soundbite in the film. In a feature last month, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that Scruggs was disturbed by a lawsuit naming the AJC. But there's no. At the time, the coroner said it could not be determined if the overdose was suicidal or accidental. Craig Herrera is an American host and meteorologist at FOX Weather. "Kathy Scruggs was the one who broke the story about Richard Jewell," said Lyda Longa, who was a police reporter for the newspaper during the 1996 games. While researching his first novel, Atlanta Heat, Coram spent several days a week for a few years at Manuels Tavernthe homicide cop hangout where Scruggs would sidle up to cops over liquid lunches and happy hours in hopes of coaxing out new information. She is right now the face of justice. So I had to call the district attorney, and we went through this whole back and forth and Nancy didnt end up speaking about the Olympics again.. It was heart-wrenching for Richard, Alexanders co-author, Kevin Salwen adds. Scruggs' former friends and colleagues spoke about the journalist's legacy at The Journal-Constitution for an article in the newspaper titled "The Ballad of Kathy Scruggs." "The perspective of the fictional dramatization of the story, as I understood it, was that Kathy, and the FBI agent who leaked false information to her, were in a pre-existing romantic relationship, not a transactional exchange of sex for information," Wilde continued. I feel like we were struggling throughout to give more and more time to her story and to really help you understand her world and the toll that these events took on her life., Without enough time to spend with her story, she becomes a culprit. One of the things I love about directing is the ability to control the voice and message of the film. As for Olivia Wildes notion of why people arent complaining about Jon Hamms character, thats an easy one: Tom Shaw isnt a real person. Shes flawed, and really complex, and really interesting. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. That sort of portrayal of her, its an insult not only to her, but to just about any other woman whos been a reporter.. Which is still the case and not despite the movie, but because of it. Clint Eastwood slanders reporter Kathy Scruggs in "Richard Jewell," his otherwise powerful and honest film. Such a portrayal makes it appear that the AJC sexually exploited its staff and/or that it facilitated or condoned offering sexual gratification to sources in exchange for stories. Andrew Nichols is an American bilingual journalist. According to the 1997 Vanity Fair piece by Marie Brenner that the movie is partially based on, the case was being handled by an FBI division that had been formed to fight the Cold War, whose strength was intimidation and manipulation rather than the deliberate gathering of evidence to be presented in court.. Initially hailed as a hero by the media, Jewell was quickly identified as a suspect by the FBI and local law enforcement based on psychological profiling. This led to him being scrutinized and ridiculed by the media before he was cleared as a suspect. Its based on the real-life events of the 1996 Summer Olympics and the Centennial Park bombing. Julia Morales is an American sportscaster as well as a pregame and post-game talk show star. They deflect and distortopting to challenge one assertion in the movie rather than accepting their own role in destroying the life of a good man. In an interview with Collider, Gugino acknowledged that Scruggs was known for partying hard, but she was also known as a great reporter and what intrigued Gugino about the part was the notion that everything can look a certain way, depending on the point of view youre looking at it from, and that we all have a sense of what our truth is and it might be very different than somebody elses., Gugino went on to say that the scoop about Jewell basically fell in her lap and Scruggs was pressured to do it quickly, otherwise somebody else was gonna run the story, which is the nature of that profession, and she ended up in very deep.. She liked a good party, too. Theres even another agent in the story named Tubbs. "Kathy was just luminous," Parke said. She struggled with chronic. She was just 42 when she died in 2001. The second season of "Manhunt: Deadly Games'' takes on the saga of Eric Rudolph and Richard Jewell. The police caught on to Rudolph when he did a bombing in Birmingham. 111 people were still injured, and two people died: Alice Hawthorne and Melih Uzunyol, a Turkish cameraman who had a heart attack while trying to cover the event. Even as a kid Jewell seemed driven by. Scene Stealer: The True Lies of Elisabeth Finch, Part 1, Scene Stealer: The True Lies of Elisabeth Finch, Part 2. Her own brother said of her, I loved Kathy, but she was crazy.. It's so deeply wrong, yet they continue to do it. Kathy Scruggs was the colorful and controversial Atlanta Journal-Constitution news reporter who broke the story that the FBI was investigating hero security guard Richard Jewell in the 1996 . It all happened in 1996 when security guard Richard Jewell alerted police during the Centennial Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. When she went after a story she did what was necessary to get the story, within legal and ethical bounds., Her friend Susan Parke called her luminous, adding she was so, so alive. Jewell died in 2007 at age 44. She and Martz had been held in contempt for refusing to reveal their source. He received a public apology from Jay Leno, a $200,000 settlement from CNN, and an almost $600,000 settlement from NBC, among others. She was at least doing the job as it was understood; he was the unscrupulous one. Clint Eastwoods film is based on the Vanity Fair profile piece (linked earlier) American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell and the book The Suspect: An Olympic Bombing, the FBI, the Media, and Richard Jewell, the Man Caught in the Middle. 6+ Thoughts I Had Watching When Harry Met Sally For The First Time, How Wolf Entertainment's New Cop Drama Will Be Fundamentally Different From Chicago P.D. That FBI agent is identified by name in The Suspect, but, tellingly, not in the movie* (book spoilers in the footnote). Her soul was gone. ", In addition to her depiction in Richard Jewell, out in theaters Friday, December 13,her life inspired two fictional characters. Then-AJC columnist Dave Kindred, who wrote a column comparing Richard Jewell to murderous pedophile Wayne Williams, does not. We never made such a false & damning claim. She was really tough and hard-nosed. That article headlined FBI Suspects Hero Guard May Have Planted Bomb set off a media firestorm around Jewell from which he never really recovered, even after being cleared of the crime. (Ed: note: The sources name, according to The Suspect, was Don Johnson. ", Olivia Wilde as Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs in the movie 'Richard Jewell. The Complete Guide to All the Ways Donald Trump Is Legally Screwed. In December 2019, a biographical drama film Richard Jewel was released portraying the real life of Jewell. Richard Jewell is an interesting exploration of this fascinating case of a man wrongfully accused. Despite the fact that he was never charged, Jewell was subjected to a trial by media, which had a negative impact on both his personal and professional life. As the film depicts it, Scruggs (played by Olivia Wilde) finds out that Jewell is the FBIs primary suspect (which he probably never shouldve been) by sexually accosting an FBI agent played by Jon Hamm at a bar. Nichols, who resides and works in Toronto, has been a newsroom reporter, a field reporter, as well as an anchor for the CBC News Network, Read More Andrew Nichols CBC Salary, Age, Height, Wife, College, Net WorthContinue. Early buzz for Clint Eastwoods latest film indicates that both Paul Walter Hauser and Sam Rockwell have a fighting chance. Powered by. She nonetheless gets the information, while fondling for his crotch. These cases typically ended up being settled out of court and him being rewarded an undisclosed amount of money. When. Unfortunately, Scruggs can't come forward to defend herself, either: She died in 2001 at the age of 42 from an overdose of prescription pain pills, according to Poytner.
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