Yesterday, we told you about the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch, who was so outraged and offended that Clint Eastwood’s new film “Richard Jewell” depicts journalists in a less-than-positive light, he wrote a whole column about it:
I saw 'Richard Jewell.' With "alternative facts" and a plot twist around fake news that smears a dead female journalist, Eastwood dangerously amplifies Trump's "enemies of the people" rhetoric. Stay away and spend your $$ on your local org. My new column https://t.co/FMwJHLZgU1
— Will Bunch ? (@Will_Bunch) December 11, 2019
If you’ve just about had it with journalists trying to paint themselves as victims while they’re out there victimizing other people, you’re definitely not alone. Washington Examiner Magazine managing editor Jay Caruso is fed up, too.
Good Lord. I took the time to read this and what I didn't find was a movie review. Instead, it was a nearly 2,000-word screed on how this film represents a danger to the free press. It's such balderdash. Bunch takes pains to remind us in several paragraphs that Kathy Scruggs https://t.co/cptqg3YOUE
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) December 12, 2019
is dead. Yeah, well, so is Richard Jewell — and he suffered the indignity of having been cast as a terrorist by the federal government when he was truly a hero. No one knows how many lives were saved because of him. It's like so many have said, no one in the
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) December 12, 2019
'Shattered Glass' isn't so much about Stephen Glass as it is the lone efforts of editor Chuck Lane, battling forces within The New Republic that wanted to protect Glass, especially the fictional character of Caitlin Avey. So Clint Eastwood, one of the most iconic filmmakers of
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) December 12, 2019
through the string of post-Iraq War flops that were purposely intended to be a broadside against the Bush administration and GWB himself. The problem here is, critics know people will like it. Will it play up to some biases? Of course. Anyone who went to Notre Dame probably
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) December 12, 2019
thinks every second of Rudy is 100 percent true. But Eastwood is a storyteller. And often there are times when filmmakers take artistic license around true events to heighten tension or to add a layer of drama that might not otherwise be there. If you want a 100% factual
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) December 12, 2019
representation of what happened, watch a documentary if it's available or read a damned book. For Bunch & others to try and tie Eastwood's film to Trump as something "dangerous" is far more a threat to the principle of free expression than anything you'll find in Richard Jewell.
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) December 12, 2019
Well said, sir. The journalistic profession’s overall response to “Richard Jewell” says a lot more about them than it says about Clint Eastwood. And nothing it says is good.
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