Partners In Crime

The saga of Richard Jewell, onetime Olympic hero turned bomber suspect reached its conclusion this week, as the FBI cleared him in their continuing investigation, pending further evidence. The news came 88 days after The Atlanta Journal fingered Jewell as the focus of the FBI's probe. Frenzied media hype followed the initial headlines. You remember the camera crews staked outside of the security guard's house, the sensational news headlines and the interviews with psychologists, who were kind enough to explain the "complex" that led Richard Jewell to endanger people's lives. And now, 88 days later, he has been cleared and proclaimed an innocent man.

Richard Jewell's ordeal should remind us how quickly our news media can turn into tools of gossip and slander. The news media has a right and a responsibility to report on issues that concern us as citizens. That includes the right and the responsibility to report on law enforcement investigations and court proceedings. But where there is a right there is not always a responsibility. Sometimes, the news media has a right to report but a responsibility not to.

The new coverage of Richard Jewell is a case in point. In its lead staff editorial on Tuesday, The New York Times laid nearly all the blame for the unjust treatment of Richard Jewell at the FBI's doorstep. They characterized the media's pursuit of Jewell and the stakeout of his home "regrettable," but peripheral. Ultimately, the editors said, the FBI was at fault for conducting an investigation based entirely on circumstantial evidence, rumor and hearsay. The FBI does shoulder considerable blame for leaking Jewell's identity to the press. Eager to close the case, they counted their chickens before they hatched and presumed guilty a man who turned out to be innocent. Detectives tried to abuse Richard Jewell's Miranda rights and for that they deserve criticism.

The FBI, however, had solid grounds for suspecting Jewell, as the Times' own reporter made clear. Jewell's mysterious absence from his post the night of the bombing, the odd statements he had made to friends in the preceding days and his rudimentary bomb training warranted attention. Jewell was a valid suspect, though his name should not have been leaked to the press so quickly. But without the media's subsequent attack, Jewell's reputation would not have been so permanently scarred. If they had been as skeptical of the FBI probe in July as they are now in late October, we might have known of Richard Jewell's innocence much earlier. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other newspapers were right to print the FBI's leak and to cover the progress of the investigation, but when they took Richard Jewell's life apart piece by piece they violated the public's confidence in them as objective reporters. Either they assumed Jewell's guilt without sufficient evidence, or they selfishly snatched up news that would sell big.

The news media are active participants in our society. Newspaper editors and TV anchors who often claim that they are neutrally reporting on decisions made by other people are at best disingenuous; at worst, they are liars. When a newspaper writes a story it is (or should be) deciding that the news at hand is sufficiently reliable that it will not cause irreparable harm to those that do not deserve it. Richard Jewell did not enjoy such journalistic prudence, and his life may never be the same. Mark Twain wrote: "It takes your enemy and you friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you."

As friends of Richard Jewell (and anyone who cares about civil liberties should be his friend), we must make sure that news, not unfounded gossip, gets to us. When the FBI falters, we should not amplify their mistake so that it echoes for years to come. That probably means never watching FOX and certainly means telling our newspapers that we won't tolerate this kind of cheap and dirty journalism. Whether on this campus or back in our hometown, we can prevent the freedom of information, one of our greatest assets, from becoming our greatest liability.

Ethan M. Tucker's column appears on alternate Thursdays.