Sleeping With Sources is Common in Journalism
In case you haven’t been paying attention to the panic-stricken bloviating from the entertainment shill media about Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell, the story of the accused 1996 Olympic Park Bomber, who wasn’t the bomber after all, there comes this tidbit.
From the trades:
Olivia Wilde has tweeted a string of responses to criticism of the character she plays in Clint Eastwood’s film “Richard Jewell,” which opens Friday. In the series of tweets, she admits that the journalist she plays, Kathy Scruggs, had a relationship with an FBI agent, but Wilde says she was not in control of the way the character was portrayed.
Nope. She’s just an actress. But the shill media will go after the weakest prey always.
One of the things I love about directing is the ability to control the voice and message of the film. As an actor, it’s more complicated, and I want to share my perspective on my role in the film “Richard Jewell”.
— olivia wilde (@oliviawilde) December 12, 2019
Why is Every Journo in the Shill Media “Shocked?”
Much like Captain Renault in Casablanca who was shocked that there was gambling at Rick’s Cafe, many journalist shills are shocked that Eastwood would dare to include this tidbit in a story about an average person having their lives ripped apart by a voracious and rapacious media.
And all in the pre-Internet days. Proving that they’ve always been this way, it didn’t just start with Facebook in 2004.
From the trades:
The film has been criticized for spreading the perception that the late reporter Scruggs exchanged sex for a tip about the suspect from an FBI agent investigating the 1996 Atlanta bombing. In the film, Scruggs pressures a federal agent (Jon Hamm) for information and, in the same conversation, suggests the two have sex. Hamm’s agent gives her a tip that security guard Richard Jewell a suspect in the bombing at the Summer Olympics, and it is implied that the pair sleep together directly after this exchange. Together with reporter Ron Martz, Scruggs went on to break the story of Jewell being under suspicion. He was cleared 88 days later after having his life upended.
By the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
What Are We To Make of All of This?
Well, Olivia Wilde is also the kid of journalists, so she’s employed that fig leaf for protection against the Twitter mob, to no avail.
It also looks like Richard Jewell is opening at the lowest level for any Clint Eastwood directed film ever—at this point, it looks like it’s tracking at around:
Suffering at the box office are Warner Bros. “A” Cinemascore-rated, Clint Eastwood-directed movie Richard Jewell…earning $4.9M …Richard Jewell is well below the $10M minimum that services were spotting on both films.
So I guess there’s that.
When you tell the story of how the media has always operated, don’t expect them to shill for you when you tell that story in film. And also don’t expect to make that much money
