Spotlight on a Film that Gets Journalism Right

Brian d’Arcy James and Rachel McAdams in Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight. Photograph: Allstar/Open Road Films—from The Guardian.com. I like how they hold pens and use notebooks--a small thing, but that's what a reporter would look like during an interview.

 Last week, students in my media law and ethics class got to snack on pretzels and enjoy one of those rare classes where Joe didn’t spend too much time talking. We watched most of the 2015 movie “Spotlight.”

It’s a sobering film to watch at a Catholic university. But it’s a great film, in my opinion. NPR liked it, too.
 The all-star cast does a great job of creating the feel of journalism as it actually is, something that is very rarely seen in movies. These people aren’t glamorous or rich—they are inquisitive, intelligent writers who are feeling around in the dark, trying to find the story. They don’t know what the story is when they start.

And the people they are dealing with are not simple, either. There are multiple points of view, multiple levels of deception and truth telling.

As I re-watched the film with students, I was struck by the many memorable lines in the film:

Liev Schreiber, playing the new editor of “The Boston Globe” Marty Baron, introduces us to some journalism jargon, noting an opinion column about an abuse speech. “What’s the follow on that?”

That a priest would abuse so many kids “strikes me as an essential story for a local paper,” he adds. One overt key lesson of the movie, to me, is the importance of the kind of journalism that the Spotlight team at the Globe represents and that sadly is passing away as American journalism contracts.

But on to the memorable quotes from the movie. Stanley Tucci, as lawyer Mitchell Garabedian, is conversing with a Globe reporter and notes the system of secrecy that existed in the Archdiocese of Boston. “If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one,” he says.

The class I was teaching lasts an hour and 50 minutes, and the movie is a bit over two hours long. I put a DVD on reserve in the library, and students are required to finish the movie, and write an essay answering some discussion questions I posted.

The class movie viewing was last week. Papers are due Thursday. I’m excited to read what students think. The movie, I hope, will pack some impact with them.

And at least they got to see one movie with actors and actress who actually look and act like the journalists I worked with during my newspaper career.

Boonville Daily News, circa 1985. JK. Michael Keaton, Liev Schreiber, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery and Brian D'Arcy James are members of the Boston Globe investigation team that uncovers a sex-abuse scandal involving the Catholic Church in the film, Spotlight. Kerry Hayes/Open Road Films—from NPR.org.