In the spotlight

In the late 1980s several accusations were made against catholic priests in the Boston area. Almost a decade after the claims were made the Boston Globe began to reinvestigate the claims. This was the focus of the movie "Spotlight" the 2015 Academy Award winning film that told the story of the survivors of this event.

Mark Ruffalo plays the role as Micheal Rezendes, a reporter for the globe and part of spotlight, which is an investigative wing of the globe. When a new editor Marty Baron joins spotlight, he encourages his team to go after the decade old story about the priests accused of molesting young boys and girls during the 1980s. At first Rezendes talks to the lawyer of the survivors, Mitchell Garabedian but Garabedian turns down the interview saying that he is too busy to talk about the case.

At the globe, a women tells the editors that a handful of the survivors are in a group called SNAP. Soon after finding this out the team brings a survivor Phil Saviano. Saviano is the man who started snap. He brings a box of evidence which Saviano has kept over the years. Saviano tells the team that there is many more people who were molested but did not make it. That is why Phil and a handful of others are called Survivors. Back in Garabedian Law firm, Rezendes wants get more information on the case. Rezendes persists and finally gets Garabedian to talk when he tells him that he is part of Spotlight.At first Garabedian wont let Rezendes talk to his clients but he finally gives in and Rezendes meets the first victim. Rezendes and Sacha meet with several of the survivors including a man named Joe.

Joe was a young man when he was molested a priest. Joe explains that he knew he was gay when he was younger, but the priest tried several things with him, that are very graphic. Joe says that it was one of the worst times of his life. Joe gets quite emotional as he tells Sasha about the events that occurred but Sasha comforts him. The journalist do a great job of making the survivors feel safe in their environment.

Richard Sipe a former priest calls mike and tells the team that he estimates that almost 90 priests are estimated to have molested kids in the 1980s.

In the end, the story was publish in 2002 and the once cold case broke headlines. The story was well written and the reporters and editors did a great job collaborating on the story, especially Micheal Rezendes and Sasha Pfeiffer.

Liz Heron and Social Media

            Liz Heron former editor of the New York Times discussed social media tactics that we can use to make our social media more news worthy. Heron says that we live in a very social world. In her TED talk she offers us several tips and tricks we can use to make our social media more effective.

            One of the first things she discusses is social medias response to the death of Robin Williams. She points out an Academy tweet that included a photo from Aladdin captioned “Genie, you’re free”. Even though this was a thoughtful and kind post, Heron points out that it could be taken in the wrong way because it could make suicidal people more venerable.

           

            She also mentions how Instagram has created such a wonderful source of news with their 15-second videos. She shows a video about the Islamic state that had been posted to Instagram. She explains that it is an excellent piece of social media, because it is short, tells a story and has no voice over. Even though she does not mention this, Snapchat has the same thing except it is in 10-second videos. Also the user has the ability to explore the video and read a short story about the video.

            Another thing she discusses is the use of the internet to find falsities in other news stories. She brings up a photo of Niagara Falls frozen. The photo was taken at a totally different time than the tweet had claimed. Heron said that this is one of the great things about the internet in this day and age.

            Liz also talks about how social media works in a circle these days and that it is constantly changing.

Shattered Glass

            The second in- class movie we watched was called Shattered Glass starring Hayden Christensen and Peter Sarsgaard. The movie takes place in the publication, “the New Republic, a political commentary magazine. The story is about the fraudulent writer Stephen Glass, and Chuck Lanes pursuit to exploit the falsities.

            Peter Sarsgaard plays as Charles Lane, the newly promoted editor of the New Republic. The previous editor Michael Kelly was fired by his boss Marty Peretz after shouting at Peretz regarding the treatment of his reporters. Charles Lane picked out the problems in Stephan Glass’ previous articles. The first major article that Stephan Glass reported falsely on was “Hazardous for Your Mental Health”. The CSPI responded to the article written by Glass claiming that the article consisted of numerous falsities and that the information had been distorted. Another article written by Glass titled “Spring Breakdown” claimed that there was binge drinking and crude acts going on during the College Republican National Convention. Toward the end of the movie Chuck Lane figures out that most of the article had been fabricated by Glass. In the article Glass wrote that “The minibar is open and empty little bottles of booze are scattered on the carpet”. At the beginning of the movie the former editor Michael Kelly finds that there is no minibar in the Washington's Omni Shoreham Hotel.

            Under the direction of Michael Kelly, he wrote multiple fabricated articles until Kelly was fired. After the firing of Kelly, a reporter at the time Charles Lane was promoted to editor. Lane began to notice the discrepancy between Glass’ stories and the real environments. During the movie, Lane takes the Glass to the hotel where the College Republican National Convention occurred in 1997. Glass tells about how there were hundreds of people in the lobby, but Lane doubts that even a hundred people could fit in the small lobby. When Lane asks the security officer in the Lobby about if they had a convention several weeks back the security officer denies it and tells Lane that the building is “closed on Sundays”. Lane knows that something is wrong about the situation and starts fact checking other stories that Glass has written. After reading his Glass’ articles Lane comes to the conclusion that he must suspend glass until further notice. In the end Glass is fired, after Lane reads fact checks several articles. Lane concludes that Glass has lied about multiple stories in the past. After discovering the scandal the New Republic issued an apology to the readers.

            In conclusion, I felt like Chuck Lane was the most ethical character during the movie. Lane focuses on the facts and keeps his eye on Glass until he discovers the truth. Without Lane being on Glass' tail 24/7, I doubt that Glass would have lost his job, at least for the time being. Under his old boss Michael Kelly, I got the feeling that Glass was given a free pass. It makes you wonder how and why he got by with all of these fabricated stories.