SPOTLIGHT SHOWS INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM AT ITS BEST
The Boston Globe has a special column called “Spotlight,” written by a team of crack journalists who spend more time developing a story than the rest of the reporters. Yet complaints that Catholic priests sexually abused children as far back as the 1960s were not printed, even when an association of formerly abused children presented evidence to one such reporter. When Spotlight begins, the year is 1976, and a complaint of child abuse is being made in a Boston police precinct, with the expectation that no arraignment of the perpetrator will ever be made in a city 53 percent Catholic—and for that matter covered in the press by reporters who were baptized Catholics. The scene then shifts to the day in mid-2001, when Marty Baron (played by Liev Schreiber) becomes the new editor of the Globe (currently editor of the Washington Post). A new story about child abuse surfaces, whereupon the editor asks the Spotlight team to pursue the matter. What they find is a massive cover-up, a three-year statute of limitations, a maximum of $10,000 damages paid to victims according to the law, mediation settlements in which the victims must swear never to make their claims public, and even missing or sealed court documents. How are the Spotlight reporters to get evidence? Similar to the narrative in this year’s Labyrinth of Lies, a victim’s organization has been trying to bring the matter to the attention of the public, but the problem is that documents are needed to corroborate mere allegations. One day, reporter Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) discovers that the church makes records of priest assignments in a volume each year, identifying some priests as on “sick leave.” Using those records, the Spotlight team is able to track the transfer of certain priests from one parish to another over several years. Initially informed of only about a dozen errant priests, they cross check sources to locate about ninety and receive corroboration from the attorney for the church who arranged the mediations. When 9/11 occurs, however, they have to delay release of the story, which Boston’s Cardinal Law (Len Cariou) uses to his benefit to attract more church attendance. When the film ends, the story is released, and Spotlight phones start ringing with even more allegations pouring in. Titles at the end reveal that 259 priests were eventually identified, the cardinal resigned, and then lists hundreds of cities in the United States and around the world where child abuse was eventually identified. In a course on journalism, two films of 2015 will be contrasted—Truth and Spotlight. Both involve the Boston Globe, which cross checks sources in a professional manner, recalling All the President’s Men (1976). The Political Film Society has nominated Spotlight, directed by Tom McCarthy, as best film exposé of 2015 for showing how investigative reporting operated in this story and as best film on human rights for concisely revealing how priests took advantage of poor children from broken homes and how some of those children grew up as alcoholics, drug addicts, or even committed suicide from the shame and trauma inflicted upon them while the church hierarchy looked the other way, refusing to discipline priests. MH