Spotlight shows the importance of journalism at a time when the value of the profession is being questioned, budgets are being tightened and newsroom numbers are dwindling.
Spotlight tells the true story of how a small team of tenacious investigative journalists at the Boston Globe exposed widescale and long-running sexual abuse by pedophile priests in the Catholic Church.
Starring Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo, the two-time Academy Award-winning film tracks the reporters’ brave path towards the global-scale exposé that had life-altering ramifications for hundreds of victims, the perpetrators and the system that allowed it to happen.
“Sometimes it’s easy to forget that we spend most of our time stumbling around the dark. Suddenly, a light gets turned on … all of you have done some very good reporting here. Reporting that I believe is going to have an immediate and considerable impact on our readers. For me, this kind of story is why we do this.” – Marty Baron
The story is goosebump stuff for real reporters. No wonder so many journalists are raving about it.
But it doesn’t glamorise the profession of journalism. In contrast, it actually shows the often tedious, painstaking, all-consuming work carried out by humble journos in pursuit of the truth. The paper trails, the knock backs, the wearing out of shoe leather, the late nights and the pressure to produce something your editor can publish. Things that take time, persistence and yes, funding.
Investigative journalism is an expensive exercise for bleeding newspapers needing to make cost efficiencies just to stay afloat. But rather than look at whether investigative journalism can be afforded today let’s hope there are still those out there in the media industry and the general public who see it as something we can’t afford to live without. And Spotlight is helping to illuminate this. – By Fiona West
The official trailer can be viewed here.