The Running Man
by Stephen King
Contents
…Minus 062 and COUNTING… Richards stayed in all day while Bra
Overview
Richards watches the Network turn his attempt to reveal the pollution conspiracy into a national display of censorship, falsified audio, and emotional propaganda. The broadcast reframes Richards as a cop-killer and would-be revolutionary, intensifying public hatred and making his survival even less likely.
The chapter deepens Richards’s conflict with the Network: instead of merely running for money and his family, Richards begins to imagine direct revenge against the people controlling the Games.
Summary
Richards spends the day hidden in Bradley’s apartment while Bradley arranges a car and another gang member to drive Richards to Manchester. Bradley returns with Stacey at six, turns on the Free-Vee, and tells Richards they will leave that night, but first lets Richards watch the national broadcast of The Running Man.
Bobby Thompson opens the program by branding Richards a wolf and murderer, showing both Richards’s real face and the John Griffen Springer disguise. Thompson focuses on Boston and presents the Y.M.C.A. explosion as a deliberate trap that killed five policemen, turning public attention toward Richards’s supposed savagery.
The broadcast then airs one of Richards’s submitted clips, in which Richards tries to address the poor, the unemployed, gang members, and people in the Developments about the conspiracy Bradley revealed: pollution is poisoning them while the Network suppresses the truth. Before Richards can explain, the audio is cut off and replaced by Thompson’s dismissal of his message as radical ravings, prompting the studio audience to shout that citizens should turn Richards in and kill him.
A second clip is even more thoroughly falsified. Richards had urged viewers to storm libraries, get cards, and read books about air and water pollution, but the Network overlays or splices in obscene, violent threats against police and the Games Commission. Richards realizes that the broadcast has transformed his attempt to expose the truth into evidence that he is a dangerous agitator.
Thompson then shows sentimental images of the dead policemen and their families, accusing Richards of taking “blood money” for each death. Richards is sickened by the images despite Bradley’s insistence that the presentation is fake or manipulated. The audience’s hatred swells into a chant, making clear that the public is being driven beyond informing on Richards toward attacking him on sight.
After Bradley turns off the Free-Vee, Richards understands the full force of the Network’s propaganda. In a cold, thoughtful rage, Richards says he may go to the Network’s upper floors and kill the people responsible for the broadcast, alarming Stacey, while Cassie remains asleep in the other room.
Who Appears
- Ben RichardsFugitive contestant whose anti-Network message is censored and falsified, leaving him sickened and vengeful.
- BradleyGang member sheltering Richards, arranging transport, and explaining the Network’s propaganda tactics.
- Bobby ThompsonFree-Vee host who frames Richards as a murderous threat and manipulates public rage.
- StaceyBradley’s companion, present during the broadcast and frightened by Richards’s talk of killing Network officials.
- CassieBradley’s gravely ill family member, asleep in the next room during the broadcast.