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Rachel Moyer

Dr. Birdsong

SSC 200

20 March 2019

Spotlight on Newsmaking

Spotlight, directed by Tom McCarthy, adheres to many of the “principles of journalism”,

while focusing on the interactions between journalists, sources, and audience. To begin,

journalism’s obligation is to the truth which aligns with the Spotlight’s purpose. Walter

Robinson describes Spotlight as a four-person investigative team that keeps their findings private

until the story is complete, thus avoiding information from being given out falsely (6:50). Along

with the idea of presenting only the truth, journalists must show loyalty for its citizens. Many

people within the society put their trust and faith into the church and a story about the Church’s

flaws would damage their lives. Person after person have refused to talk and told investigators to

stop digging into this topic. However, the investigators know that they must keep working and to

eventually publish the story or else the citizens will have no idea of the danger they are in

(28:24). Then Mr. Rezendes speaks about showing previously private information to the whole

society by questioning the reason for privacy in the first place; “Well, where’s the editorial

responsibility in not publishing them” (1:34:02). The Church would be drastically hurt if this

information was revealed, yet Mr. Rezendes knows that citizens should have the right to see the

papers. The principle of practitioners being allowed to exercise their personal conscience is

shown through the investigators and journalists unwillingness to quit researching when faced

with opposition is complementary to giving the citizens their loyalty. These investigators also

show strong habits of verifying all their information before considering including in the article,
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aligning with the principle of verifying information. Michael Rezendes digs deep into old cases,

lawyers’ victims, and public documents before bringing up the information to his superior. He

even goes to sue the church, according to public’s eye, to lift a seal on documents that would

verify his evidence (11:04). The most prevalent principle shown in the film is the idea of

maintaining independence between those covered and the practitioners. 53% of the Globe’s

subscribers are catholic and the Catholic Church has been known to keep a close watch on the

newspaper. The Cardinal influenced the Porter investigation (55:37) and has made multiple

attempts to end the current story. Investigator Sacha Pfeiffer attended the Catholic Church, prior

to investigating this story (27:20). Walter Robinson interviewed people that were inferred to be

his personal friends (1:28:05). There are countless relations between the journalists and the

people being covered, yet their story continues to evolve without adding too much bias.

This story touches all five values of newsworthiness. Many people, including priests and

Mr. Baron, state that Boston has a small town feel that keeps society connected. In the last six

months, stated at the beginning time of the movie, there have been 2 stories about the priests’

relations with children and these stories came across to people with feelings as if it were local

news (10:40). The Church does not want to pass along this feeling again hence Mitchell

Garabedian statement, “This is Boston and the Church does not want them to be found so they

are not there” (1:21:09). To keep the optimistic view of the Church, it was in their best interest

that any negative paperwork within the city be removed. Secondly, many of the victims have

common traits in their stories which are relevant to the rest on community. These traits include

the victims previously referring to Priests as Gods, survivors often turn to needles and alcohol,

the Priest was visited again after first molesting, and these Priests targeted low-income families,

absentee fathers, and broken homes. This information was said by Patrick and Joseph, both
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victims, and Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, SNAP, member Phil Saviano. Phil

Saviano also states, “When you’re a poor kid from a poor family, religion counts a lot” (32:27),

which applies to many civilians in Boston. Next, Priest Geoghan molested over 80 kids in 6

parishes over the last 30 years and the Cardinal Law found out 15 years ago followed by doing

nothing (10:00). This situation has been occurring for decades and still impacts the current time.

Finally, the values of human interest and controversy are evident through the interactions

between each person. Investigator Pfeiffer reads the article with her Nana because her Nana felt

connected to the Church and in some relation to the victims due to her devotion (1:55:40). The

story affected Pfeiffer’s Nana similarly to others that had devotion to the Catholic Church.

Constant conflict between the Church’s influence and the reporters resulted in the paper

discovering more issues. After finding information about one priest, Mr. Baron knew that there

were more issues out there due to the continuing conflict. Mr. Baron pushes his team to uncover

more; “We need to focus on the institution, not the individual priests” (1:11:30). Through these

added discoveries the story was strengthened and connected to more people.

The professional model of newsmaking matches best with the events surrounding the

Priest sex abuse cases. The Catholic Church was hiring skilled lawyers to cover up the flaws

within their institution, similar to the skilled professionals that interact with stories in the model.

Audience values impact what is shown within the news. Within Boston, majority of the citizens

are Catholic, thus the Church will use its power to keep them in line with catholic ideas. By

doing this, objectivity would not be as certain within the news since the Church is using their

stature of power to influence stories, leaving them in a positive point of view. This also interferes

with the idea of journalists having autonomy within their stories. Finally, economics had an

impact on these surrounding events. The Church continued to make money since they were not
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losing many members and they were doing their best to keep the remaining members by

preventing the story from coming out. Due to the Church’s desire to hide their imperfections, the

mirror model would not be applicable. News constantly alters in order to conceal mistakes; thus,

reality is not accurately represented. The market model focuses on providing news that sells

along with seeking competitive advantages between news organizations. Mr. Garabedian

mentions another paper, The Phoenix, which had lost all its power when other organizations

became popular (20:57). This idea was not essential to the surrounding events, nor was the

Church trying to sell attention grabbing ideas. Overall, the professional model grabs a majority

of the characteristics that reflect the events around the cases.

References

McCarthy, T. (Director). (n.d.). Spotlight [Video file].