It’s a word; it’s a noun. It’s also the
serendipitous choice for the title of the investigative journalism segment of a
provincial newspaper – the Boston Globe. You couldn’t get a better title than
this except maybe ‘Five Find-outers and Dog’ (once an Enid Blyton fan, always
an Enid Blyton fan)!!
But this is serious, responsible and accountable
find-outing. They smell a story that should be in the public domain and follow
their noses to put the facts out there, to set the record straight, to right a
wrong, despite seemingly insurmountable barricades. They are a small team but a
dedicated one, working in tight-knit coordination to uncover the information
that starts with a small niggle and ends with a burst of incredulity. Could
this be true?
The lives and work of the journalists by themselves
makes a good story but not an exceptional one – most investigative teams work
this way, taking in the highs and lows, the sleepless nights and fractured
personal relationships, the door to door trudge, the meticulous sifting of
information and the courtroom attendances. What does make this particular film
news is the scandal that it is linked to – the scandal that rocked that
unshakeable behemoth, the Catholic Church. A Church that in Boston, in particular, was an
institution that underpinned all of public, social and political life. Incidentally,
it still does today but perhaps not with the same self-assurance.
The Boston Globe was where the story broke, leading
to the coming out of thousands of victims not just in America but in other
parts of the world too, an indication of systemic failure to address a problem
that was real and that had traumatic consequences for its victims and
ultimately for the Church. Lawsuits and settlements have drained finances,
parish churches have shut down, priests at the ground level have had to rebuild
on the debris left behind. Thanks to the digital medium, the news had global
ramifications in real time. And the biggest victim was, so very regrettably, ‘trust’.
That men betrayed the cloth was not new. That the
betrayal was covered up was not new. In
earlier times, the victim would be considered the one accountable and the
Church was considered above scandal. A few whispers here and there perhaps. A collective
clerical shrug for an unfortunate lapse, but nothing in the public domain. But times change and truth will out – the
longer it is suppressed, the more explosive it proves to be.
Time has passed, there has been compensation, there
has been healing and there is now a watchful gaze with a hair-trigger
response. Never again.
So how is ‘Spotlight’ the fantastic experience that
critics cite it to be? Because it resurrects a scandal from the past? Because it holds the audience in rapt
attention from frame to frame? Or, because it confronts us with the
uncomfortable truth that but for one man’s dogged conviction, the facts may
never have been told?
