Movie explores hard truths

At the end of the day, everyone wants to know the work they’re doing is important and meaningful.

For me, when I’m struggling with that very feeling, I turn to “Spotlight.”

I’m sure older journalists would argue for “All the President’s Men,” which is also a powerful movie, but “Spotlight” came out during my first year of college and shortly after I decided what career I wanted.

I’m also sure some of you reading this are going “Oh, it’s a journalist talking about a journalism movie,” but I promise there’s more to it than that.

“Spotlight” follows a group of investigative journalists working at the Boston Globe. The new editor asks what the follow up will be to a column about a local priest and allegations of sexual assault. The story falls on the Spotlight team.

Like all the best journalism movies, “Spotlight” is based on a true story. Some of you may know that phrase in movies can mean basically nothing.

“The Strangers” horror movie is about three masked home intruders who torture the family living there. It claims to be based on a true story. The truth? As a kid, the screenwriter once got a knock on the door by some people who were committing robberies in the neighborhood.

“The Blair Witch” that claims to be found footage isn’t even based on anything. Same with “Fargo.”

However, “Spotlight” was well researched and is fairly accurate. There’re some bits that aren’t, but overall the story is.

For instance, after the film came out, Jack Dunn, who was the director of public affairs at a Catholic school in Boston, settled a defamation case against the film claiming it portrayed him as indifferent to the abuse reports.

The film shows some interviews out of order and generally looks at a very narrow window of time the reporters worked on this story. It goes from summer of 2001 to Jan. 6, 2002, when the first story came out.

Going back and watching this film now as a reporter, I see two stories going on. The story of officials covering up the sexual abuse of kids and one of reporters dealing with the reality of their jobs.

We’re seen as needing to be impartial and unbiased and while that should always be the goal, “Spotlight” makes the statement that it’s OK for the stories we write to affect us.

We’re not perfect superhumans. Hard stories like the Spotlight team worked on will impact the people investigating and reporting on them. It shouldn’t affect the story, but those are feelings we need to be allowed to express to family, friends and coworkers.

To me, one of the most impactful scenes features reporter Michael Rezendes, played by Mark Ruffalo, as he expresses those exact feelings and how real this story was to the team.

“They knew and they let it happen to kids. It could have been you. It could have been me. It could have been any of us.”

As professionals, we need to not let those emotions impede our work; to rush a story that needs more time to be fully fleshed out or hold a story because of what it says. But those feelings are extremely valid.

In an interview with People.com after the movie came out Rezendes said, “Even though I was a lapsed Catholic, I still considered myself a Catholic and thought that possibly, some day, I would go back to being a practicing Catholic. But after this experience, I found it impossible to do that - or even think about doing that. What we discovered was just too shattering.”

In terms of the other story playing out in the film, one of the most interesting parts to me of this story is that when the movie came out, the Catholic Church didn’t discourage people from watching it or knowing the story. Rather, Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley said it depicts “a very painful time” but allows the church “to deal with what was shameful and hidden.”

Yes, this is a movie and designed for entertainment — trust me, spending hours going through public records is not as exciting as “Spotlight” makes it look.

But it shone the light on a story that matters, that really happened. The film was able to impact those going through it, reporters who didn’t have the resources to follow the story like the Boston Globe did and potential future reporters who could see what this industry can do.

Michael Shine is a contributing writer for the Daily American Republic.