© Reuters / Mario AnzuoniClint Eastwood at the 'Richard Jewell' premiere in Los Angeles
Clint Eastwood's '
Richard Jewell' tells the story of an innocent man whose life is ruined by a media witch hunt, featuring a reporter who sleeps with sources for gossip. To say journalists are offended is an understatement.
Journalists are used to movies that portray them as heroes. As champions of justice who speak truth to power, and against all odds reveal the crimes the powerful want to keep hidden. '
Spotlight' told the story of the
Boston Globe's investigative unit revealing systemic child abuse by the Catholic Church. '
All the President's Men' recounted how Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein caught Richard Nixon bugging the Watergate Hotel. '
Veronica Guerin' showed viewers how one Irish journalist helped bring down the country's biggest crime kingpin in the 1990s.
Superman was a journalist in his day job, for crying out loud!
Clint Eastwood, one of Hollywood's last surviving Republicans, tells a different story in '
Richard Jewell'. The titular Jewell was a security guard who saved countless lives when he ushered crowds of people away from a pipe bomb during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. Initially hailed as a hero, Jewell later became a suspect in the FBI's investigation, a fact revealed by his hometown paper, the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Jewell was hounded by the media for several months, and portrayed as a disgruntled
"lone bomber." He was eventually cleared of involvement that October, and issued an apology by US Attorney General Janet Reno a year later. He died of a heart attack in 2007, after suffering health problems his mother claims were brought about by the stress of his "trial by media."
Comment: More on Greta (and the forces behind her):