CSotD: Protecting the Public’s Right Not To Know
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Nick Anderson responds to Spotlight's Best Picture win with this dour assessment, and, while there are certainly some political aspects to the commentary, it's more of a societal observation than a partisan one, so I'm not going to wait until Sunday to talk about it.
I haven't seen the film in question, one disadvantage of semi-rural life being that thoughtful films don't always make it out here, though I suppose now this one will.
However, the buzz from within the journalism community has been extremely positive, and my sense is that you can take the depiction in the movie pretty much as gospel, not just on this story but on the trade in general.
However, I'm more than a bit put off by shocked response to the actual scandal that was uncovered: Even the "what did they know and when did they know it?" part, which was the Globe's breakthrough on this, was published 14 years ago.
The Globe has a nice collection of stories on both the scandal and the movie here, but, goddammit (and He does), where have you been?
This is something kids have known about for years, something that falls into the "since surely the adults know, it must be the way things are meant to be" category, along with what young black people have known about cops for years.
No, not all cops, not all priests, not all teachers.
But come on, man.
A college friend used to laugh about his school, where one of the Christian Brothers was known as "The Fly" because he would come down to the gym showers and watch, rubbing his hands together like the aforementioned insect. If the kids all knew, why didn't the adults?
And this isn't entirely about the Catholic Church, though that organization is the one large enough to engineer the massive coverup at the heart of the scandal.
But when a local high school fired a sexual predator, I made a few phone calls to kids I knew at other schools and asked them about predators I'd heard of there.
When I say "a few phone calls," I mean one per school.
Every kid I spoke to — and these were "good kids," scholar-athlete types, not juvenile delinquents with a presumed insight into the back alleys — responded on a level of "Yeah, what do you want to know about it?"
If anyone wanted to know, they would have no trouble finding out.
Nobody wants to know.
This level of willful ignorance amounts to its own cover-up.
Investigative reporting is what dragged it out of the shadows, and not just in Boston.
Back in the mid-'80s, 60 Minutes did a piece on a scandal in New Orleans where pedophile priests were quietly shifted from one parish to another rather than being turned over to the police or at least placed in positions where they had no opportunity to re-offend.
Shortly after the story aired, a young waiter in British Columbia, his PTSD sparked by the broadcast, alerted authorities to the abuse he had suffered years ago at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland, touching off a major investigation as well as a book and made-for-TV movie.
And, by the way, earlier investigations at Mount Cashel had been stymied by local authorities who declined to insult the good Brothers by believing what a bunch of juvenile delinquents said about them.
So, yes, investigative journalism matters.
To somebody.
I suppose.
Because here it is, some 30 years after Mt. Cashel, 14 after the Globe's series, and people are saying, "Oh my god! I can't believe it!"
Which is why, as Anderson notes, news organizations are not putting a lot of money into investigative journalism: Nobody cares.
Nobody wants to know.
And the days are long gone when news organizations served up broccoli and brown rice along with the ice cream and candy.
As it happens, I'm doing some decluttering and came across a copy of my exit interview from my last daily paper, which was not an actual interview because who really gives a shit why you're leaving? But they had me fill out a form in which I went on at length about people who were sincerely trying to do the best possible job but were handcuffed by one-size-fits-none edicts from Corporate, where newspapers were just a commodity like toothpaste or blue jeans, to be extruded at minimal cost and sold for maximum profit.
5. What constructive comments do you have that might make your department or the company a better place to work?
Managers need to listen. (HQ) needs to listen. If I thought that would happen, I might be inclined to stay. But I'm leaving.
And it's not just the little papers deciding to give up the effort. Yesterday, this story appeared.
Nor is there some "new approach" that is going to fill the gap. You don't parachute in and produce this type of work. You have to be there, you have to spend years developing a presence, cultivating sources, defining your credibility and learning where the bodies are buried.
Jack Webb's newsroom-based potboiler, "-30-" didn't win any Oscars, but it wasn't far off the mark, particularly in the character of "Lady," the crusty old reporter who had been there forever and knew everything.
A real-life newsroom couldn't function without a "Lady" who would grumble, "No wonder he wouldn't tell you. He's married to the Mayor's sister-in-law."
Those old curmudgeons are gone: They were around too long and cost too much. Better to get a kid straight out of J-school at an entry-level salary.
And, sorry, but the hard truth is that on-line crowd-funded rootless journalism, regardless of who performs it, cannot take the place of solid, professional, permanently embedded reporting.
It's like closing down hospitals and expecting MSF clinics to take up the slack.
So the other piece of post-Oscar buzz that caught my ear and seems relevant was someone asking how, if Mad Max won so many other awards, it didn't get "Best Picture"?
Hang on, pal: The next remake will win it.
It's going to be a documentary.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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