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Richard Jewell Scandal

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Richard Jewell The story of what happened to Richard Jewell is a tragic one and just goes to show how the media can distort someone’s personal image without having all of the pertinent information. Today, I will be explaining exactly who Richard Jewell was. Then, I will explain what happened to him to make him famous and then infamous. Lastly, I will explain whether or not I think the media should be held accountable and in what type of different ways. All too often this day in age the media skews and sensationalizes events without all of the information. Long gone are the days of accurate news reports that are pertinent to the United States citizen’s interest. Now all we receive are pop culture junk, inaccurate stories, and political paid garbage from what I call the national news ratings machine. The 1996 Olympics were hosted by the …show more content…

During his shift working the 1996 summer Olympics Richard Jewell’s life would change forever. While on duty on July 27th Jewell noticed a suspicious bag under a bench and reported it to the Georgia Bureau of Investigations officer that was also working the event (Ostrow, 2000) Upon investigation 3 pipe bombs were discovered in the unattended bag and Jewell and other law enforcement officers began to clear people from the area surrounding the bombs (Olympic Bombing, n.d.). Because of Jewell and the other law enforcement officer’s efforts to get people out of the direct area around the bombs countless lives would be saved when they finally exploded. The total count of victims ended up being 1 fatality and 111 people injured from the blast (Ostrow, 2000). Directly after the events unfolded Jewell was interviewed and portrayed by media and news outlets as a hero hailed by NBC’s Katie Couric who said while interviewing him “You were in the right place at the right time and you did the right thing” (Ostrow, 2000).

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