MACK #76: Richard Jewell

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Richard Jewell.

If you are over a certain age there’s no way you don’t remember the bombing of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

That night’s celebratory festivities ended with a concert performed by Jack Mack and the Heart Attack. [Here’s the actual recording of that night, with the band singing their song and then the bomb going off] Jewell found the backpack that contained three pipe bombs and alerted all the right people. He then helped to try to move the crowd away from the area, most likely saving lives that night.

By the next day he was the media darling being hailed as hero by the MSM, fielding interview offers and even a possible book deal.

And then, just as quickly as he had become the hero of the hour, Richard Jewell became the biggest villain in the country. An overzealous reporter (Kathy Scruggs) got a tip from a close friend in the FBI that the Bureau was looking at the hero security guard very closely. In the movie it is implied that she was the type of gal who would sleep with someone for a tip. There has been some backlash about that assumption — so I invite you to come to your own conclusions. In the Vanity Fair article Scruggs is referred to as a “police groupie.”

During this episode Dave and I discuss the movie as well as the real life events that inspired it. We include clips from the movie and news reports covering the actual events. [The movie is actually based on the book The Suspect: An Olympic Bombing, the FBI, the Media, and Richard Jewell, the Man Caught in the Middle by Kent Alexander and Kevin Salwen and a Vanity Fair article AMERICAN NIGHTMARE: The Ballad of Richard Jewell by Marie Brenner.]

Our conversation also leads us to discuss how completely the media learned their lesson from this embarrassing event and how great it is that they absolutely would never ever go on to do this to anyone again. Oh, right, no we never discuss that because it’s bullshit.

The media never learned from this and continue to misreport and malign people just so they have something to talk about. If it bleeds it leads, and if it doesn’t bleed they’ll stab it until they can make a story out of it. Hands Up, Don’t Shoot anyone?

We also have a little corona virus talk. I’m personally more than a little shocked at some of the extremes the governors and mayors are going to during the national “Slow The Spread” campaign.

Dave tells us which comedic actress he finds “enchanting” and! reveals that a famous photographer took a picture of him and some friends playing music that wound up in the New York Times. No, he doesn’t have a copy. Any internet sleuths out there with better googling skills than me who can find the photo in question will be rewarded with a MACK t-shirt or coffee mug from our merch shop.

If you’d like to hear more of us bickering through a movie review then I have great news for you! We have quite a few more movie review episodes that you can find right >> HERE! <<