“Richard Jewell” opened in theaters Friday. It’s the story of a security guard turned main suspect in the 1996 Olympic Park Bombing.
The book the screenplay was based on, called “The Suspect,” has been in bookstores since November. The book’s co-authors, Kent Alexander, a former US Attorney for Georgia and former Wall Street Journal editor, and reporter Kevin Salwen, conducted nearly 200 interviews and sorted through 90,000 pages of documents to write it.
Salwen sat down with “Morning Edition” host Lisa Rayam recently and said Alexander’s “insider status” allowed them to gather and pen details that never went public about the case.
The book has received rave reviews. The movie has not. Some have criticized the way the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the late investigative reporter Kathy Scruggs were portrayed.
Salwen said he and Alexander choose to focus solely on their book and stand by their reporting.
