Quote:
Originally posted by panerd
What about Richard Jewell? Just the messenger, right?
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To a large degree, yes. Look, if I was Richard Jewell or someone in his family, I'd be pretty pissed off about the whole ordeal. But I'd direct my anger to the police who investigated me, tipped off the media and then stood back while I was fed to the wolves (taking the heat off them, of course).
I used to work as a reporter, so of course I'm biased. And I can understand the criticism that the media splashes the accusation on the front page, then buries the retraction in the back. But very often it's the investigators who are aggressively pushing the information out there (sometimes with good intentions, sometimes not) and I think they get let off the hook when it goes bad. "Blame the media" is getting almost as easy as "blame the politicians" but a lot of times it's just not warranted.