The Richard Jewell syndrome

Remember the terrorist bomb that exploded in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta in 1996? 

Security guard Richard Jewell spotted a suspicious backpack and cleared the area of most spectators before the bomb went off.

Later, Jewell was falsely singled out as a suspect of having planted the bomb himself.  The news media focused attention on him, cameras followed him everywhere, police searched his home, and details of his private life were leaked (things on his computer, as I recall) -- and his life became a media circus.   He was eventually exonerated and sued for libel.

I wonder if something similar isn't now happening with the pilots of the Malaysian plane that's gone missing.   They naturally came under suspicion when evidence emerged that the plane's transponder and other systems had been turned off from someone who knew how to do this.

Their lives are now under intense scrutiny, even though there is absolutely no evidence against them, other than it seems a likely scenario to explain what is known.  But everything gets put under a microscope and distorted.  The pilot has been supportive of the opposition governmental policy -- but so what?  That's perfectly legal.  But then media reports have characterized him as having "fanatical" politics on the basis of his having worn a T-shirt that says "Democracy is Dead."

As a blog poster said:   That could be nothing more than was meant by Americans who said the same thing after the Supreme Court threw the presidential election to George W. Bush in 2000.

Not many people would like to have their every utterance, every email, every web site they visit, every opinion expressed, in whatever context -- blared across newspaper headlines.

I strongly support a free press.   I also deplore the unwarranted destruction of lives in the media race to get a news scoop, or be the first to come up with an explanation.

Ralph