A Decade Later, Spotlight Warns of Erosion of American Journalism

Almost a Decade Later, Spotlight Warns of the Erosion of American Journalism

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As its tenth anniversary approaches, 2015’s Spotlight becomes only more resonant in a media landscape increasingly subject to the interests of power. The film is a testament to the importance of journalism and cinema in exposing injustice and amplifying truth, as well as a sobering reminder of the influence of institutional authority.

Director Tom McCarthy’s film follows The Boston Globe’s investigative reporting team, Spotlight, over the course of its eight-month investigation into widespread sexual abuse by Catholic priests and the Boston Archdiocese’s efforts to conceal the crimes. Upon its release, Spotlight received widespread praise for its impressive storytelling and authentic portrayal of investigative journalism. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay at the 2016 Oscars, as well as two Golden Globes, a SAG Award, and more, lauded for both its cast and filmmaking.

Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Stanley Tucci, and Liev Schreiber create a rich atmosphere of suspense, layered with moral complexity stemming from their characters’ religious upbringings. The writing is unapologetic, without dwelling on obvious wrongs or harping on issues of morality. It does justice to its subjects, without exploiting their suffering, masterfully navigating its explicit subject matter while still conveying accurate depths of trauma. Spotlight’s filmmakers prioritize storytelling. We are not distracted by unnecessary stylistic choices that detract from the potent narrative. Characters are developed but not centered, the cinematography is muted and tasteful (faithfully depicting the often grim reality of a coldly professional Boston newsroom), and the score is powerful without overdramatizing the emotion it accentuates.

At its core, Spotlight is a powerful exploration of institutional corruption and the systems that enable it. At a pivotal moment in the film, Martin Baron (Schreiber), the Globe’s Executive Editor, tells the Spotlight team that their story is not simply about the sexual abuse cases they have uncovered, but about the Archdiocese’s suspected role in concealing them. Some Spotlight members are shocked that Baron does not want to run the story of the confirmed cases. Baron urges the team “to focus on the institution, not the individual priests … We’re going after the system.”

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Spotlight frequently reminds its audience that its ultimate villain is the system. We do not spend extensive time on individual perpetrators but rather delve into the network of Church leaders, lawyers, private school officials, and charity foundations that shield them from accountability. The influence of these embedded institutions extends beyond individual cases and victims, perpetuating a culture of silence and complicity.

At multiple points in the story, the Church and its affiliates pressure Spotlight team members to abandon their investigation, insisting that the Church supports the greater good of Boston and that meddling with its authority threatens the stability and moral fabric of the community. Cardinal Bernard Law (Len Cariou), the Archbishop of Boston and key figure responsible for the cover-ups, tells Baron in their first face-to-face meeting that “this city flourishes when its great institutions work together.” Baron responds with a subdued, “I’m of the opinion that for the paper to best perform its function, it needs to stand alone,” delivering a pivotal theme of the film and refusing to let The Boston Globe be complicit in a system that protects the Church from scrutiny.

The Spotlight team prioritizes its journalistic duty despite political and social pressure and their own moral and religious dilemmas. Baron’s stance highlights journalists’ responsibility to hold powerful institutions accountable, and the film’s depiction of interactions, particularly between Law and Baron, underscores how journalistic ethics can potentially be compromised for agenda-driven reporting.

In Spotlight, the Catholic Church operates as a corporation, heavily influencing other sectors of the community. It poses a threat to The Boston Globe, one that parallels the existential challenges confronting contemporary journalism on a much larger scale.

In recent years, we have witnessed a surge in media consolidation and, with it, a privatization of narrative control. Acquisitions and mergers have affected NBC, ABC, The Washington Post, Audible, and others. As contemporary journalism is increasingly subject to corporate monopolization, we must question the influence of outlet owners on the quality and diversity of information being disseminated. Owners do and will increasingly pressure journalists and editors to uphold corporate interests.

What we are most likely to see in the near future is an absence of coverage similar to the one Spotlight’s power-wielding antagonists fight to preserve. Two weeks ago, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit her job at The Washington Post after an editor rejected her sketch of Jeff Bezos and other tech executives bowing before Donald Trump. Bezos acquired The Washington Post in 2013. “As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable,” Telnaes wrote on her Substack. “For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job.” It is easy to imagine an editor at The Boston Globe, sympathetic to the Church or afraid of social and professional repercussions, pulling a similar move and killing the Spotlight story.

Across the media sphere, it can feel like disinformation is winning the fight against attempts to promote objective truth, as Meta announces it will discontinue its use of fact checkers and allow falsehoods to run rampant across Facebook and Instagram. Ideal-driven dedication to journalistic integrity is increasingly difficult to come by in a hyper-polarized media landscape in which opposing parties convince themselves that because they are in the right, lax standards of objective reporting can be rationalized as necessary.

Spotlight’s portrayal of the Catholic Church’s efforts to conceal sexual abuse is a cautionary tale, not just about the abuse of power within religious institutions, but also about the the ability of wealthy and powerful forces to shape narratives, obscure truth, and evade accountability. It is so compelling, not because of its cinematography or editing, but because of its commitment to centering the importance of journalistic independence. The film itself is not flashy or sensationalist. It grounds itself in story and truth, mirroring the principles of good journalism, and, ultimately, calls on us to champion defiance of the status quo. Democracy will die in the type of darkness that Spotlight strives to illuminate.

A.J. Weiler writes about culture and entertainment. You can find her on Medium and Muck Rack.

Almost a Decade Later, Spotlight Warns of the Erosion of American Journalism