The Mass Communications students over at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction Colorado put together this documentary about The Daily Sentinel.
Interesting perspective from outside of the Newspaper and Newspaper business.
Good to see some of the folks that I used to work for: Denny Herzog; Bob Silbernagel, Editorial Page Editor; George Orbanek, Editor & Publisher; Laurena Davis who was a reporter when I was there, but I believe, eventually moved up to City Editor.
Also nice to see that the Newspaper heavily promoted the premier of the doc… shown at the Avalon Theatre.
It’s been so long since I watched this movie, but in this 1984 movie, “Johnny Dangerously.” young Johnny, played by Byron Thames says my lines that I must have asked hundreds of times.
Sorry — I can’t include the audio clip because I don’t pay for the pro version of Worpress, but take my work for it, he says, “Paper, Mister?”
I think everyone at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution knew that the film about the 1996 Olympic Park bombing was not going to portray the newspaper in a good light, but Mr. Talk to the Empty chair Eastwood is portraying AJC reporter Kathy Scruggs in a VERY bad light.
Read the AJC story here. More reporting from Deadline here.
Here is the letter attorney Marty Singer sent to Warner Bros and Oscar winner Eastwood on behalf of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
But according to everyone except this movie … Kathy Scruggs did not sleep with anyone for a scoop. She is being libeled in the movie about the man who got libeled.
Looks to me that Olivia is doing some backpedaling on Twitter:
The Wall Street Journal review give us this:
The Kathy Scruggs character, as written by Mr. Ray and played by Ms. Wilde under Mr. Eastwood’s direction, is a retrograde refugee from third-rate film noir, a seductress variant of Hildy Johnson, the hilariously unscrupulous crime reporter played by Rosalind Russell in the classic 1940 Howard Hawks comedy “His Girl Friday.” She’s out of place here, stylistically and dramatically, and, as I said, her sleaziness is gratuitous.
Full disclosure: I was in the Park during the bombing and helped write the initial stories for the AJC. I also knew Kathy and can assure you she did not have to sleep with anyone to get a story.
I was in Centennial Olympic Park when the bomb went off. I was working for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on their Olympics team. It was a crazy time.
I suspect that the AJC is not going to be portrayed in a favorable light in this film.
Here’s the blurb from the YouTube page (above):
Directed by Clint Eastwood and based on true events, “Richard Jewell” is a story of what happens when what is reported as fact obscures the truth.
“There is a bomb in Centennial Park. You have thirty minutes.” The world is first introduced to Richard Jewell as the security guard who reports finding the device at the 1996 Atlanta bombing—his report making him a hero whose swift actions save countless lives. But within days, the law enforcement wannabe becomes the FBI’s number one suspect, vilified by press and public alike, his life ripped apart. Reaching out to independent, anti-establishment attorney Watson Bryant, Jewell staunchly professes his innocence. But Bryant finds he is out of his depth as he fights the combined powers of the FBI, GBI and APD to clear his client’s name, while keeping Richard from trusting the very people trying to destroy him.
The film stars Oscar winners Sam Rockwell (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”) as Watson Bryant and Kathy Bates (“Misery,” TV’s “American Horror Story”) as Richard’s mom, Bobi; Jon Hamm (“Baby Driver”) as the lead FBI investigator; Olivia Wilde (“Life Itself”) as Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs; and Paul Walter Hauser (“I, Tonya”) stars as Richard Jewell.
Oscar winner Eastwood directed from a screenplay by Oscar nominee Billy Ray (“Captain Phillips”), based on the Vanity Fair article “American Nightmare—The Ballad of Richard Jewell” by Marie Brenner. Eastwood also produced under his Malpaso banner, alongside Tim Moore, Jessica Meier, Kevin Misher, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Davisson and Jonah Hill.
Eastwood’s creative team includes director of photography Yves Bélanger and production designer Kevin Ishioka, along with longtime costume designer Deborah Hopper and Oscar-winning editor Joel Cox (“Unforgiven”), who have worked with Eastwood throughout the years on numerous projects. The music is by Arturo Sandoval, who scored 2018’s “The Mule.”
Warner Bros. Pictures Presents a Malpaso Production, an Appian Way/Misher Films/75 Year Plan Production, “Richard Jewell.” The film will be in theaters on December 13, 2019 and will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures.
Here’s the Vanity Fair article the blurb mentions.
I would not have ranked Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane so high if only because of that uber-cool penthouse apartment with rooftop garden to NO newspaper reporter would ever be able to afford.
Planning to go see “The Post.” If you’re not familiar with it, here’s a good synopsis.
Movie makers get a lot of things right and other are just dead wrong. Anyone who has been around a newspaper print press knows that they are not only very noisy, but also greasy.
This scene (screen capped from the movie’s trailer) most likely would never had happened. I doubt that Washing Post Publisher Katharine Graham would have climbed up to the top of the press to watch it. If she had, I can guarantee you that would be the end of that dress.
On a modern press this may be believable, but in 1971, presses looked more along the lines of this undated photo from The Boston Globe:
This is usually how publishers check the press run, or the rare occasion they go down to the pressroom:
Alan Baker and Dewayne-Larsen check a press run at The Ellsworth American, the second oldest weekly newspaper in Maine.
The fact that I could not find any photos of a big city newspaper publisher in the pressroom shows you how ofter they get down there.
Stumbled across the trailer for “Baby Driver,” last night. The synopsis according to Rotten Tomatoes:
A talented, young getaway driver (Ansel Elgort) relies on the beat of his personal soundtrack to be the best in the game. But after being coerced into working for a crime boss (Kevin Spacey), he must face the music when a doomed heist threatens his life, love and freedom.
And The Atlanta Journal-Constitution makes a very brief appearance, but FYI, there is nowhere or nothing in Atlanta that locals call “The Hub.”
The AJC’s marketing department must have been involved, because this is a pretty accurate depiction of what the newspaper actually looks like.
Even the old AJC buildings make an appearance:
The AJC is no longer at this location, having donated it to the City of Atlanta back in 2010-ish. However, this shot is located in the alley between the printing plant and the main newspaper building on the right.
Back in the day, delivery trucks would load up on the docks, left, and clog up the alley. I have no idea what the city now uses the printing plant for. The presses were demolished when the AJC moved out.
On the right, in the foreground, is the newspaper building, but what you can see more of is the former Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. The feds packed up their money and moved to midtown Atlanta years ago. The building now houses the State Bar of Georgia.
If you look at the two squares high above the yellow van, those were the security windows so the guards could see the garage into the Federal Reserve. What you can’t see is the old furnace, where the Feds used to burn currency. I recall when they did this green sludge would run out from it and run down the center of the alley.
Wanna Buy a Paper, Mister? 