Living Under The Spotlight Summary

Living Under the Spotlight-The Archdiocese of Boston What is a crisis? The Harvard Business Review states that “A crisis is a situation that has reached a critical phase for which dramatic and extraordinary intervention is necessary to avoid or repair major damage”. The events depicted in the movie Spotlight detail the investigation of the Archdiocese of Boston with regards to the sexual abuse of children by Boston area priests, highlight the inappropriate actions of the church while displaying empathy and responsible journalistic reporting on the part of the staff of the Boston Globe Spotlight investigative team of reporters. This crisis, which started out with local allegations, led to exposure of priests sexually abusing children worldwide.

Just as we as a class have examined the case studies of Johnson and Johnson (Tylenol) which took place in 1982 and the British Petroleum (BP) students gulf oil spill from 2010, students will look to this case study in terms of investigative journalism, moral ethics, religious perspective, public relations and the use of crisis communications skills. Scholars will have several other notable cases to reference where the lesson will cover the belief that the “cover up is always worse than the crime”. Penn State University’s handling of the Jerry Sandusky child abuse scandal, in addition to the Fraternity hazing rituals that have plagued universities nationwide, are all examples of crisis situations that were allowed to continue due to institutions not confronting the crisis head on with a clear transparency and acceptance of fault. This week revelations surfaced of a prominent Hollywood director who for years has been secretly accused of sexual harassment. These allegations were covered up with monetary settlements and confidentiality agreements. The truth was uncovered earlier this week in a New York Times article. The similarities to the earlier aspects of the Boston priest case; settlements, sealed documents, agreements of non-disclosure, are all eerily similar, especially the fact that once the truth was unmasked public relations officials are

Thankfully the investigative Spotlight team of reporters were not causalities of this economic turn in the newspaper industry. Bloggers and social media outlets provide little if any original reporting. These sites provide readers with instantaneous news clips, but do these reporters truly know their subjects or their readership? Does the television reporter ever follow up with a subject from a 5 o’clock broadcast, or do they simply move on to tomorrow’s story with rapid speed? What amount of time is actually devoted to the story before it is “run with”? I feel strongly that it was the interpersonal connections that were made by the reporters to many of the individuals throughout the investigation that led to the success of the story. Speaking face to face with victims, lawyers, and local catholic officials throughout the community showed the reporters sincerity, determination and integrity. They were local citizens that shared coffee with their subjects, that lived in the same communities and yes many were of the Catholic faith. They were not reports who flew into Boston, stayed in a local hotel for 5 days, covered the event, and flew out of Logan back to their news headquarters. Their time commitment (5months initially and still to this date) showed to all involved that there was a desire deep inside each of them that this story mattered to their community and they needed to get it correct.