By: DOROTHY GIOBBE ONLY HOURS AFTER the Centennial Park reopened at the Atlanta Olympic Games last week, the Atlanta Journal came out with a special edition naming a suspect in the bombing that left one person dead and scores injured.
Security guard Richard Jewell had not been charged with any crime at press time, but much of the country's media followed up on the story, citing the report in the Journal.
The Journal's coup in beating the wire services and other news outlets has its roots in the Waco incident of a few years ago, according to an editor at the newspaper.
The editor recalled that in the days preceding the standoff at the Branch Davidian compound, the Waco Tribune-Herald, a Cox-owned newspaper, did an admirable job of reporting on the cult and their leader, David Koresh.
But as the standoff turned into a siege and ultimately ended in tragedy, the major news in the standoff began to break from Washington, D.C., headquarters of the intelligence agencies, where the Washington Post and New York Times have established sources. The two newspapers soon began breaking the most significant reports.
After the Waco incident, and aware that the Olympic Games potentially could be marred by violence, editors at the Journal and Constitution, two years ago, began putting together a team of reporters to cultivate sources in law enforcement and Olympic security.
That preparation paid off last week, when the Journal's team, lead by Cathy Scruggs and Ron Martz, broke the news about Jewell on Tuesday afternoon in a special edition of the newspaper.
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