Scruggs was the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter who first broke the story that Richard Jewell (played by I, Tonya’s Paul Walter Hauser), a security guard who saved hundreds of lives when he alerted authorities that he had found a bomb on his rounds, was being considered as a suspect by the FBI. He was cleared of responsibility after 88 days of being relentless grilled, by which time he had already been vilified in the press. One year later, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno apologised to Jewell for the distress the ordeal had caused him. Jewell died in 2007, at the age of 44, from health complications.