Whenever someone asks me what my favorite movie is, I hesitate for just a moment before answering. Not because I don’t know, but because my response often brings an awkward follow-up question. My favorite movie, without hesitation, is the 2015 film Spotlight – and that’s when the real conversation begins.

It’s a bit unsettling to say that my most-watched film is about one of the most harrowing and disturbing topics imaginable: the Catholic Church child abuse scandals.

Spotlight tells the story of the Boston Globe’s investigative journalism team, the group that uncovered decades of systemic sexual abuse and the vast cover-up orchestrated by the Boston Archdiocese. The stories they published in 2002 shattered the institution’s credibility, sending shockwaves not only through Boston and New England but across the entire United States and the world.

The revelations that started in Boston came to Pennsylvania’s Coal Region in 2018 when a grand jury revealed allegations against priests in the Allentown and Scranton archdioceses.

Why This Film Resonates

At its core, Spotlight is a film about investigative journalism – the painstaking, often thankless process of chasing down the truth in the face of immense institutional pressure. The film captures the tedium and persistence of reporting: scouring public record and knocking on doors that no one wants to open. It’s a reminder of what journalism was and should be, wrapped in an unflinching look at corruption, power, and accountability. It’s also why the team portrayed in the film won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for their investigation.

One of the most striking elements of the film is its portrayal of a newspaper industry on the brink of massive change. There’s a memorable moment where Globe editor Marty Baron bemoans that “the Internet is cutting into classified ads” – a line that foreshadows the industry’s struggles to survive in the digital age. As Spotlight unfolds, we see a newsroom that still has the time and resources to chase a monumental story, but we also sense that this era is rapidly slipping away.

I love this film because I love journalism. There’s a craft to it, a relentless pursuit of fact in a world filled with distractions, misdirection, and outright lies. There’s a reason I originally went to college to be a journalist. I was a newspaper subscriber by the time I was eight or nine, a loyal reader of Harrisburg Patriot-News each day before heading off to school.

By my senior year of high school, I was an editorial fellow at that very paper, getting a taste of the work I had admired for years. I’ve shared my published essay from that spring before – but here it is again.

That passion took me to Hood College, where I studied both Communications and History, disciplines that are distinct in practice but deeply connected in purpose.

The Crisis of Journalism Today

You can say that work of journalists and historians, in many ways, is about revealing hidden truths – occasionally uncovering what powerful people would rather stay buried. Spotlight reminds us why investigative journalism matters, but watching it nearly a decade after its release, and more than 20 years after the events it portrays, it’s impossible to ignore how much has changed.

Today, the media faces an existential crisis. Years of budget cuts, newsroom closures, and corporate consolidation have left fewer reporters doing more work with fewer resources. Many communities, including around the Coal Region, lack the local news organizations that kept residents informed of their own community or what’s left has been gutted.

One notable exception is the remarkable work being done in northern Schuylkill County by Kaylee Lindenmuth with the Shenandoah Sentinel.

Against that backdrop, the rise of alternative media and social networks has given people the option to dismiss uncomfortable truths in favor of “alternative facts,” a phrase that barely conceals the outright falsehoods it describes.

Journalism has become an easy target for vindictive and manipulative politicians and corporate leaders who encourage the public to mistrust facts altogether.

A Familiar Name in the News

This week, one of Spotlight’s real-life figures, Marty Baron, is making headlines. After leaving the Boston Globe, Baron went on to lead The Washington Post, taking the reins as Jeff Bezos purchased the paper from the legendary Meyer-Graham family that operated the Post for 90 years. Under Baron’s leadership, The Post delivered some of the most important investigative reporting of the past decade.

Now retired, Baron is speaking out against Bezos’s editorial interference, particularly his attempts to soften coverage to appease the current President of the United States – a figure who thrives on undermining the press, spreading disinformation, and punishing those who challenge him. The very thing Spotlight warned about – the crushing of good journalism under the weight of corporate and political interests – is unfolding in real time.

A Film Worth Revisiting

Watching Spotlight again this week, I found myself drawn back to its quiet moments – the long nights spent sifting through records, the tension of a newsroom waiting for confirmation, the realization that a story is so much bigger than anyone imagined. It’s a reminder of what journalism is at its best: a shield for the vulnerable, a challenge to the powerful, and a testament to the idea that the truth still matters.

Lately, I’ve been wondering if we’re losing the ability – or the willingness – to listen when the truth is spoken and shared. Spotlight makes me miss the days when facts, when revealed, actually changed things.

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