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-Land of the Free
Richard Jewell movie update: Atlanta Constipation hires Marty Singer to go after Clint Eastwood
2020-01-15
[Free Beacon] The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) recently hired convicted felon Bill Cosby's former lawyer to go after Warner Bros. and Oscar-winning director Clint Eastwood for his movie Richard Jewell.

Marty Singer, who has developed a reputation as a "guard dog" for Hollywood clients, threatened a defamation suit against Eastwood and Warner Bros. for the film's alleged portrayal of late AJC reporter Kathy Scruggs having sex with an FBI agent to get a scoop on Richard Jewell. Jewell was wrongly suspected of committing the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing.

"It is highly ironic that a film purporting to tell a tragic story of how the reputation of an FBI suspect was grievously tarnished appears bent on a path to severely tarnish the reputation of the AJC, a newspaper with a respected 150-year-old publishing legacy," Singer said in a letter threatening the defamation suit.
Posted by:Besoeker

#17   suppose if she were alive she could sue, though her case was not slam dunk.
if one can sue on behalf of dead people, hollywood would be doomed.
Posted by: daniel    2020-01-15 20:42  

#16  I'm sorry, but AJC is a 'public' personality and as such the standards of libel are beyond your ability to sustain.

And she can't be libeled, as she was a public personality AND she's now dead.
Posted by: Rob Crawford   2020-01-15 19:52  

#15  To be (crystal), bad to assert as verifiable MATERIAL FACTS things for which you have no substantial evidence.
Posted by: Lex   2020-01-15 16:47  

#14  Understood but I think it's generally bad to publish nasty things about people that aren't true.

Bad when it's done to a schoolboy in Kentucky, a family of grocers in Ohio or an esteemed judge, and bad when it's done to a dead woman journalist.
Posted by: Lex   2020-01-15 16:45  

#13  You're missing the point Lex. This is about the AJC's reputation, they don't give a rat's ass about the hack reporter
Posted by: Regular joe   2020-01-15 16:24  

#12  Compromise, b. Compromise is the hypotenuse of the conjoined triangles!!
Posted by: Lex   2020-01-15 13:30  

#11  Ref #10: ....contrarian, contrarians ?

Reaches for my handy pyramid graph to explain.
Posted by: Besoeker   2020-01-15 12:59  

#10  Not to be contrarian - no friend of the AJConstipation here -- it I think Clint and Bobby would have better advised not to add embellishments about a dead woman's sex life. Her journalistic behavior was found not to have been libelous by a court at law. Whether or not she was a bad person, her memory doesn't deserve the Sandmann treatment, methinks.

My $0.02-- YMMV. Horseman, rant on!
Posted by: Lex   2020-01-15 12:20  

#9  Also resurfaces all this: Heavy.com obtained the coroner’s report. Scruggs died of a drug overdose, specifically “acute morphine toxicity.” Contrary to some other news reports, the coroner could not determine whether it was an accidental one or suicide.

“Kathleen Scruggs died as a result of acute morphine toxicity,” the report says. “…toxicological testing of chest fluid revealed a potentially lethal level of morphine. Also present in the chest fluid were paroxetine, mirtazapine, and ethyl alcohol. All of the ethyl alcohol may have been produced by the postmortem decomposition process. Findings at autopsy included severe coronary artery atherosclerosis (blockage of blood vessels that supply blood to the heart), which may have contributed to death…no acute traumatic injuries were identified.”
Posted by: M. Murcek   2020-01-15 12:15  

#8  Chutzpah.
Posted by: magpie   2020-01-15 11:30  

#7  The movie is already gone, it'll go nowhere on DVD and streaming, so lets keep it in the news.... Brilliant tactic by the Atlanta Constitution.
Posted by: ruprecht   2020-01-15 09:24  

#6  I'm sorry, but AJC is a 'public' personality and as such the standards of libel are beyond your ability to sustain. See - “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2020-01-15 09:06  

#5  "Hey! We're the only ones who's allowed to make shut up about people and publish it!"
Posted by: CrazyFool   2020-01-15 08:59  

#4  /\ Picking up the AJC from the clean end? Impossible, has been for decades.
Posted by: Besoeker   2020-01-15 08:47  

#3  ...appears bent on a path to severely tarnish the reputation of the AJC, a newspaper with a respected 150-year-old publishing legacy,"

With respect to the industry as a whole, you guys did it all to yourselves.
Posted by: Raj   2020-01-15 08:43  

#2  The actress playing Scruggs says her role does not support the AJC allegation. While Scruggs was alive she complained of how badly she was treated by AJC.
Posted by: Varmint Splat1454   2020-01-15 04:14  

#1  I understand they plan to redo Cocoon.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2020-01-15 03:32  

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