"If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one." -- Mitchell Garabedian in Spotlight
I don't think I have blogged about it, but I had mentioned on Facebook my intent to watch some movies about courage in journalism, hoping to remember a time when the press did not so badly let us down.
I will write about the others, but the movie that blew me away the most was Spotlight.
The 2015 film is about the Boston Globe's coverage of the Catholic sex abuse scandal.
If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. It is really well-done, from the performance of the actors in what is very much an ensemble cast to the way it lays out and makes a logical order of something fairly complex.
I recommend it, knowing that there are people for whom the issue will hit very close.
What has stayed with me is the process of overcoming resistance.
A new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), arrives at a time when there is a sex abuse case against one priest. He encourages the Spotlight team -- a team that does in-depth reporting over longer time periods -- to look into that. Assistant Managing Editor Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery) attempts to discourage it, apparently concerned that the public won't appreciate the coverage.
Boston's deep Catholicism is a major influence, with most of the staff and readers being Catholic, even if not especially devout.
Various characters face various levels of reluctance, but what changes that is the ever-increasing scope as they talk to more people. First they think there might be 4 or 5 abusive priests, then 11. Talking to a psychiatrist who has worked on the issue, with 1500 priests in Boston and a 6% average, they calculate that it should be about 90.
As they figure out a new method for using the church directories to identify priests who were reassigned or undergoing therapy, they come up with 87 or 88.
(I did not take notes. I would like to read more about it.)
At that point Bradlee is fully on board, and shocked to find out that investigator Walter "Robby" Robinson (Michael Keaton) buried a story in Metro a few years back. Robby didn't even remember it, but had it thrown in his face when he got mad at lawyer Eric Macleish (Billy Crudup) for going with the quiet settlements and being so successful with that.
Macleish had seemed to be the stark contrast to Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci), quoted above, but there was a time when he was trying harder, and differently, but not getting any traction.
It took a village.
People were horrified by the scope, and wanted to do something then, but they could have known the scope if they had been willing to face it openly, even if it had only been one priest and one child. One child would be worth the effort.
I had read recently that the only reason that the massive rape ring led by Dominque Pelicot was discovered was that he had also been taking upskirt photos in stores. One man noticed and let one of the women know, and she filed a complaint. Once they started looking, they found footage showing much worse things.
However, the context in which I found that out was someone saying that usually upskirting in France is not pursued.
I don't know a lot about French law, but I am very familiar with the American tendency to decide it's not that big a deal, and certainly not worth ruining someone's life over this one thing.
There are two problems with that:
- One person's life has already been affected -- one can hope not ruined, but it can be very hard -- and that is worth something, even if it is only one person.
- It never seems to be just one once you start looking.
Of course, the real issue may be who gets to be a person worthy of protection.
Does this woman matter as much as this man?
Is this child as important as this priest?
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