“Spotlight” movie trailor: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1895587/
Background:
On November 6, 2015, Tom McCarthy’s “Spotlight” opened in theaters, starring Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton. The movie, based on a true story, reveals the many years of scandal ensuing throughout the Catholic church and how a team of Boston Globe journalists, in 2002, uncovered multiple cases of child abuse and molestation within Boston churches – covered up by local Catholic Archdiocese.
“Spotlight” a long standing section of the Globe that profiles special stories and cases, began to notice a pattern in articles and court cases involving Catholic churches in Boston; they were all being pushed aside. In January of 2002, the team started looking closely into an incident of child molestation that had taken place nearly 15 years prior. The case had quickly taken a hold of the media’s attention. Just as quickly, however, it seemed to disappear. The story was soon swept under the rug, never to be heard of again. The Spotlight team, disturbed by this neglect, decided to reopen the case by constructing their own investigation. After speaking with victims, consulting lawyers, and questioning the individuals involved, the Spotlight team was able to create a shocking article that brought the case the attention that it deserved. It was revealed in the article that an appalling number of Catholic priests, 87 to be exact, had sexually abused young children over span of 30 years. Despite authority figures, like the Cardinal, being aware of the facts, the priests were allowed to continue their work. The article sent shockwaves through the city of Boston, opening doors for hundreds of victims to speak up and share their stories.
The Boston Globe
Article: The published 2002 Boston Globe article by the Spotlight team.
Title: “Church allowed abuse by priest for years- Aware of Geoghan record, archdiocese still shuttled him from parish to parish.” https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/special-reports/2002/01/06/church-allowed-abuse-priest-for-years/cSHfGkTIrAT25qKGvBuDNM/story.html
The Washington Post
Title: ‘Spotlight’ portrayal of sex abuse scandal is making the Catholic Church uncomfortable all over again.”
Summary:
The movie brings to light the very real issues that have plagued the Catholic church for many years. Within the past couple of weeks, controversy has stirred within the Boston College community, where BC Spokesman Jack Dunn claims he was unfairly portrayed in the film. The writers created a scene in which Dunn was supposed to have been aware of the abuse, then turned his cheek. The real life Dunn claims that nothing could be further from the truth and that, in fact, his intentions were actually the exact opposite. He wanted to help victims.
Despite the controversy that the movie has started, it is important that it was made. The original 2002 article exposed horrible scandal that had been kept secret for decades and gave a voice to the hundreds of silenced children that had lived in shame for years. It brought much needed attention to the community to fix a long standing issue. The city of Boston had finally learned the truth behind the so many neglected stories.
This week, the release of Spotlight revealed this story of true detective work, seeking justice, to a much broader audience. The stories of abuse and it’s uncovering was told beyond the borders of Boston for everyone to see.
CBS Boston
Article: Jack Dunn
Title: Jack Dunn Says He Was Unfairly Portrayed As Villain In ‘Spotlight’
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/11/23/jack-dunn-spotlight-movie/
Analysis:
In today’s society particularly, we have heard lots of news reporting on “dirty cops”. Police have been accused of abusing their power and taking advantage of it. Spotlight profiles the corruption of the church, which in some ways is like a government in it of itself. The heirarchy of powers was so clearly misused over the years, leading to an eruption of victims’ confessions. The film focuses on both the horrific stories of the abuse itself, but also on the crimes committed to keep the stories and allegations of sexual abuse quiet. The cases were brought to Superior Courts and then the Appeals Court where the church attempted to undo the damage. According to the original 2002 article, the Church even attempted to argue that both the Globe and the public should be access to the documents about the Church’s “inner workings”. I believe this story is pertinent to the workings of the government and is a perfect example of the debate between dividing Church and State. Many argue that religion and the Church should be left to itself and that the combination between church and the government is wrong. This story is exactly the type of case that required that the two entities come together, since the Church was so wrongfully abusing its power.
Questions:
- Media is obviously a very powerful tool and can skew a person’s perception of current events. How relevant do you think the power struggle between money and media is in today’s society?
- We have heard many stories about the abuse of power within institutions. Can you think of any other examples of authority using their powers to an extent?
- How often do we see the issue of the debate between church and state come up in current events?
pogo2currentevents 
Media is a very powerful tool in today’s society and does it’s job as skewing with perception of views of current events. I think that the power struggle between money and media is very strong in today’s society. Money is what controls many things but it also controls the media. Without money, media wouldn’t be so popular in today’s society. Media is also so popular because of the technology we have today, which is made and controlled by money. I believe that money is more powerful and having money is not the big picture in today’s society. If you are able to catch the attention of people without using the power of money, you are still getting your point across, therefore still being successful. The issue of debate between the church and state comes up in our current events because some of the controversial subjects have to do with religion, which could be very controversial. For example, birth control and abortion can be controversial and have an effect between state and the church. There are many institutions where power is abused for the worse. For example, The Florida School for Boys, also known as the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys (AGDS), which was an all boys reform school. A reform school is a correctional school for boys, which is a misuse of power for boys under the age of 14. They are using their power incorrectly to shape boys back into the way they should be acting. This was extremely controversial in the 50s because they believed that it was unnecessary.
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How often do we see the issue of the debate between church and state come up in current events?
It is very relevant and apparent that media and money in modern are very closely connected.Our modern society is media oriented in more way than one way: social media, news media, ect. This power struggle is also apparent in how media outlets who do try to bring tot he public’s attention are often not as popular nor as well received as compared to the Kim Kardashian’s Instagram. With that being said the media also does not care about certain topics that have no money for example the lack of media attention to Nigeria’s terrorist group Boko Haram while after Paris was attacked the whole world was talking about ISIS.
therefore the media mostly cares about money which is why the movie Spotlight is such an extraordinary story because the Boston Globe could have easily looked the other way at the molestation of young often poor children and taken the Church’s money. However the Boston Globe did not allow money to corrupt or hinder their investigation for truth. Other example of authority figures abusing their powers to a significant extent would be nike and their sweatshops. Sweatshops have been around for centuries in different forms and in the past several decades conditions have been worse and more detrimental the the poorer class’ health. Nike being one of the worst culprits of multibillion american companies that pay their sweatshop workers less than a dollar a day.
In current events we see a lot church vs. state issues but it is often on the religion that has been persecuted the worst historically speaking: christians. For example Kim Davis who refused to sign same-sex marriage forms claimed that she had the right to do so according to her religion. However there are a lot less cases heard by the media of the discrimination against muslims especially Donald Trumps’ slandering of the entire religion. But the issue of Church within state problems have not been a huge problem unless the frequent quoting of the bible in Congress to support the pro-life campaign.
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It is very relevant and apparent that media and money in modern are very closely connected.Our modern society is media oriented in more way than one way: social media, news media, ect. This power struggle is also apparent in how media outlets who do try to bring tot he public’s attention are often not as popular nor as well received as compared to the Kim Kardashian’s Instagram. With that being said the media also does not care about certain topics that have no money for example the lack of media attention to Nigeria’s terrorist group Boko Haram while after Paris was attacked the whole world was talking about ISIS.
therefore the media mostly cares about money which is why the movie Spotlight is such an extraordinary story because the Boston Globe could have easily looked the other way at the molestation of young often poor children and taken the Church’s money. However the Boston Globe did not allow money to corrupt or hinder their investigation for truth. Other example of authority figures abusing their powers to a significant extent would be nike and their sweatshops. Sweatshops have been around for centuries in different forms and in the past several decades conditions have been worse and more detrimental the the poorer class’ health. Nike being one of the worst culprits of multibillion american companies that pay their sweatshop workers less than a dollar a day.
In current events we see a lot church vs. state issues but it is often on the religion that has been persecuted the worst historically speaking: christians. For example Kim Davis who refused to sign same-sex marriage forms claimed that she had the right to do so according to her religion. However there are a lot less cases heard by the media of the discrimination against muslims especially Donald Trumps’ slandering of the entire religion. But the issue of Church within state problems have not been a huge problem unless the frequent quoting of the bible in Congress to support the pro-life campaign.
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The power struggle between money and media is very relevant to today’s society. Arguably, money is at the center of our political world, it is what controls which issues are pushed to the forefront and other issues that are pushed to the side. Due to technology advancing so rapidly, social media has had a major influence over news media corporations dictating what issues should be targeted towards the people, and what issues should be carefully swept under the rug. I think it is possible to put out an influential piece that may necessarily have no money behind it, and still catch the general public’s eye. However, it is extremely hard to do without financial support. As well, money can sway people from uncovering the truth and exposing wrongdoing for justice. In this particular story, “Spotlight” is one of the rare stories where journalists did not let money compromise their integrity. It is extraordinary that the Boston Globe Team did not let money persuade them from uncovering the truth, and informing the general public.
There are countless examples of authority abusing their powers, such as police brutality where we see corrupt police officers abuse and disproportionately target minorities and poor people. We have seen countless times of the police departments covering for them and giving minor punishments often times, instead of getting rid of the bad apples.
Quite frequently, the issue between church and state comes up a lot in current events, with the debate between pro-life and pro-choice activists. For example, false videos made by anti-abortion activists surfaced supposedly containing Planned Parenthood employees selling fetal tissue and baby parts. This lead to the call for anti-abortion activities pushing for Congress to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood. These videos fueled the fire, inciting violence against Planned Parenthood employees and associates, directly tying to the recent Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting.
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Starting off I think this movie is a very important one in today’s society. After seeing this movie twice, I was blown alway by the severity of a story I never heard of before. Like me, I know there are many others who never heard of this scandal. I think this movie succeeded in gaining public awareness of a serious topic. This story is still relevant. The abuse cases were buried under the rug by money, just like this movie was. I consider myself someone who is very into movies, especially during awards season. However, I had not even heard of this movie, seen a preview, or commercial until a family friend brought the movie to my attention. I think just like the cases, the movie was attempted to remain “low key” under the power of money . I definitely think the archdiocese had a say in why this movie wasn’t as “known” as other movies that were playing. I think that any celebrity sex scandal shows power abuse. Not in all cases, but in some cases, people of wealth use their money to get out situations. This is very prevalent in Hollywood. Celebrities use their “power”/money to brush situations under the rug. I also think the debate between church and state rarely come up in current events. Again, i will say i never even heard of this case before seeing the movie. People always want a VERY thick line between church state, which is why we don’t see if often in the media
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The power struggle between money and the media is very relevant today because the media is involved with everything that is going on and money is something that causes problems in all aspects of the government and the media. I believe that the media is controlled by money. Corporations and private companies pay the media to or NOT to release their stories and/or scandals. They might also tell the media how to display them, but I also believe that the media will talk about those companies’ stories using their own bias regardless of what they were asked to do. It’s their job to scrutinize and dramatize people’s faults. That’s what they get paid to do. I’m pretty sure that the media is also paid well-off to not disclose stories because people/companies don’t want to ruin their reputations. The power struggle between the media and money is wrong, but well organized and handled. One example I can think of authority abusing their power is in schools. I’m pretty sure teachers sexually abuse their students and make the student be quiet about it or else they’ll fail them. This is more frequent in the media more specifically with coaches. However, we don’t hear of these stories so often because of the fear teachers and coaches have installed in their victims. Just like this incident in the Catholic Church, people pretend to not know about all the injustice and unruliness going on in their institutions because they don’t want to lose their jobs/privileges/reputations/get in trouble. They rather keep their mouths closed because they’re either selfish or scared. The issue of the debate between the church and state don’t really come up in our current events a lot, especially with the headline of sexually abuse. The only time I can personally think of is when the LGBTQ law had just passed and pastors/priests were refusing to marry same-sex couples. The church has been battling the idea of same0sex marriage forever and these are the only scandals that have come up recently.
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The debate between church and state has been around since the beginning stages of this country because the Pilgrims came here in search of religious freedom, but the founding fathers wanted to have an impartial government. Even with the separation of church and state in the American government, there have been several big court cases involving the churches influence in government. One of the biggest is the court case involving the Defense of Marriage Act. Looking at the arguments for its supporters is that God does not allow people of the same sex get legally married on the federal level. This obviously was declared unconstitutional by the SCOTUS, but the fact that it went to the Supreme Court means that enough people believed that this Act was constitutional. With the priests it’s another story. The priests were doing something that is obviously wrong, and to make it worse, the bishop and the rest of the Church tried to cover it up. Priests are usually seen as respectable people who are kind considering that they have devoted their lives to God, but to discover that these respected people have committed such as horrible and unforgivable crime, makes them appear to be some of the worst people in the world. Not all priests do such disgusting acts, but the idea of the cover up was ridiculous. Trying to cover up any act as unforgivable as that is ludicrous because the truth will always come out.
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I Absolutely think that the media is a very powerful tool and can skew a persons perception of current events. I believe that the power struggle between money and media is very relevant today. The media is based off of money, people pay for ads during commercials on television. Money is the power, and the controller it controls everything, so in this situation it is definitely relevant. People use money for power, for example if someone did something bad like say kill someone and someone else knew or saw they would pay them off so that the word wouldn’t get out because people use money as an advantage to get ahead. Before hearing about this movie and reading Rachel’s current event I haven’t heard of it before, and its crazy to me because the church of Saint Brendan’s was in the movie or brought up in the movies (so I’ve heard) and I live right near that church. It blows me away that I have never heard of this story. The Church and Priests did anything in their power to keep this quiet which I find totally insane. I am glad this movie brought the attention back to it because its very important case. Another case that is similar to this where people use authority to their own extent would be in my opinion the federal government being a jurisdiction unto itself. The government is very powerful and does sneaky things we don’t know about because they use the authority they have at an advantage. This world is crazy and there are many stories like this we don’t know about because people use money and authority to get ahead of the public so we don’t find out these scandals, there are many all over the place. We don’t often see the issue of the debate between the church and state come up in current events because its not a popular topic, the only times I see it come up would be movies, TV shows and during presidential elections or scandals like this, I don’t really ever see it being brought up often.
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I think that the power struggle between money and media is extremely relevant in today’s society. It is because I feel like the media only portrays the crazy stories to grab people’s attention and thus allow them to have more economic income. Because the media emphasizes these things, watchers start to feed into it and start to believe it no matter how ridiculous the ideas may be. We’re like slaves to the media, which is frightening. Since the media is always filling our minds with these stories full of trash, very few serious stories actually make it to us. I feel like I see only a limited amount of news companies covering the issue of the debate between the church and state come up in current events. I feel like the only one I see is the issue on abortion. Yes, the debate on abortion is a serious matter but I don’t think that the abortion topic should steal the spotlight from these rape victims, especially from the news viewers in Boston. In the Boston Globe article that Rachel published it stated, “Since the mid-1990s, more than 130 people have come forward with horrific childhood tales about how former priest John J. Geoghan allegedly fondled or raped them during a three-decade spree through a half-dozen Greater Boston parishes.” Since this was so hidden, more than a hundred children were silent and had to live with the fact that they were raped for three decades. Many of them probably never told a soul before the investigations started because of the embarrassment factor. It’s sad to think that if the media focused more on these stories (instead of sweeping them under the rug and showing us stories of unimportant issues) these rape victims wouldn’t of had to suffer as long as they did.
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Power and money are the two main things that can influence a person’s opinion, decision etc. I think that in today’s society, money is what drives media. All that media is meant for is for entertainment and money so the struggle for power becomes prevalent enough to influence things like how Jack Dunn is portrayed by the news. For example the CBS article said “Dunn says he is so heartsick because his actual role was to help the school reach out to victims and confront the issue with transparency” while the Washington post barely mentioned him at all. The Washington Post addressed the issue instead of focusing on one person that was not directly affected. I can only imagine money is the reason why the articles focused on different subjects. The abuse of power is another thing that will never go away and the one issue that has been really discussed for a while is police brutality. Police abused their powers and harmed minorities for speaking out against unfair treatment and that shows how power can be abused. The issue of the debate between church and state is always something that is brought up in current events. No matter how many times it is said that there is a division between church and state, the two somehow seem to always cross paths. Issues like the church scandal or abortion etc are two topics were people can’t seem to keep both separated.
I think that since there is no strong division, the abuse of power is one of the things that result from it and it should be fixed before more issues like these emerge.
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This is a clear correlation between money and media; both being tools to influence others. Of course, there is a strong struggle between money and media in today’s society. Money plays a huge part in people’s everyday life. Money runs the world while media is used to influence the way people think and it brings attention to certain issues that people might not know about. Living in an age so dependent on media for news and information, media outlets tend to take advantage of these situations and only shed light on certain events while leaving other important events in the dark.
The most common stories about power abuse would be the police. After the events that happened in Missouri, people believe that all police officers are corrupt and that we cannot trust them. Many cases of police brutality has been recently reported by media outlets. This goes back to how the media would only show certain issues and headlines to capture the attention of the audience.
We do see a lot of issues between churches and states come up often in current events. Issues between churches and states would be about very controversial ideas such as abortion or same sex marriage. People would have different thoughts on these issues and it’s hard for the government to come to a solution where everyone will satisfied.
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I believe that the connection between media and money is too powerful and even more relevant. In many media outlets, especially those that are of mainstream media, are ones that are controlled and managed by big companies or people with huge money investments. Because these media outlets are so money oriented then they are very likely to be skewed and force untrue perceptions onto the public, and thus they should not be trusted media outlets. I think this is very relevant because the different sponsors different media outlets have will force different messages to be sent through their representation. A major example of this is with Fox News. Since they are a very conservative news station their messages are very one-sided and only show the reasoning of one type of people, thus ensuring that its audience has some specific perception that they would potentially not have come to if the news station was not bias.
I think under many scenarios can we think of when the hierarchy has forced unfair situations and decisions to occur. A prime example of this can be with the Affordable Care Act. Because the act forced all people of the country to have health insurance or else they were forced to pay a tax. Because of this then all people of the country were forced into either having health care although they did not want it or they were forced to pay an unlawful tax just because they did not want health insurance. Although this law seemed very helpful and logical, in retrospect it seems as though it can also be construed as forceful and intervening, and thus reason why it has been so combated.
Although I here able the division between church and state a lot in societal debates I never really see this issue come up in governmental debates. It could be because as Rachel said, the scandals are well hidden or it could be that the issue is not one of the most important in our current debate of issues.
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I believe that the struggle between money and media is very big, because money literally controls everything that goes on nowadays. Money is used in many different ways, but lately, money has been being used for the people, and by that I mean to skew their thinking. There is a lot of bribing and corruption that comes with money in the government, and there are a lot of cases where big corporations pay off the media to say good things about that corporation. With money, people are easily manipulated, and this goes for big media companies as well, which is why the struggle between money and the media is very big in today’s society. There are a great amount of cases where authority has abused it’s power, and the most interesting to me was the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971. In this “experiment,” a group of college boys were placed into a simulation prison where half would become guards and the other half would be prisoners. This experiment was to go on for around 2 weeks or so, but a couple of days after it started, many of the prisoners wanted to be let go from the experiment. This was due to the fact that many of the guards had too much power and authority, and they began to treat the prisoners like actual prisoners. This is an example of how when power is given to a person or a group of people, they could easily take advantage of the power and affect those around them greatly, most of the time in a negative way. The relationship between church and state comes up many times in current events, especially now with the elections for president going on, many subjects are being debated such as planned parenthood. This is a big topic to touch on that the candidates have to deal with due to there being many who oppose planned parenthood, and those who support planned parenthood.
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As we have seen and learned extensively in class is that in regards to congress and the passage of legislation money talks. It is nearly impossible in today’s policy making for industry and insiders to not have some hand or influence on legislation created and passed. Those who have the deepest pockets have the loudest voice and largest hand in such decisions. If a powerful, therefore wealthy, lobby group is ignored or newly created policy that conflicts with their views or progress they will fight back. They will do what they can to make a negative view of what is thought of the bill or those who passed it. The same applies to media. If a certain institution has enough money and clout their power over media and what is said is often very powerful. If you do not have the money you do not have the voice. Media also only focuses on what will give them the greatest view and present issues in ways that are agreeable to their demographics. The church especially that of the roman catholic denomination had always had huge influence in Boston based upon the fact that many of the white ethnic enclaves that settled by the thousands. the irish and italian were poor and devote to their faith. I come from a family where my great grandparents emigrated from ireland and our culture is very founded and imbued with the values reflected from the catholic faith. My Gingy received communion on her deathbed until the her last sunday. The church was untouchable and power had grown so strong because of the large number of devout catholics. This power allowed for lots of things to be swept under the rug and justice not be served because many were too afraid to not only go against the church but God. The church had so much influence over media coverage because they had such a hold within the system. The cops were catholic, the reporters were catholic , and most importantly so were the readers. The church had money to meet its power and that lead to tremendous influence of the media.
For the the past three years we have seen the media flooded with the headlines of cops unrightfully murdering young black men. Many believe that the police have taken complete advantage of their authority and the law to discriminate against these citizens.
How often do we see the issue of the debate between church and state come up in current events?
The landmark case of the case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby that “the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 would allow for-profit company to deny its employees health coverage of contraception to which the employees would otherwise be entitled based on the religious objections of the company’s owners”. The owners of Hobby Lobby argued that the mandate infringed upon their religious beliefs and therefore freedom which is a right to all citizens. The case set the precedent that if law was to infringe upon someone’s personal religious belief that person was therefore exempt from said law.
(P.S. saw the movie, Totally worth it!)
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I believe that the power struggle between money and the media is very strong and prevalent in today’s society. Money is the one thing in this society that controls everything. Having money can very much help you control a lot of things. One of those things include the media. There is a reason why Ms. Hamilton asks us to read multiple media outlets when trying to find the truth about a topic and not read a biased media outlet. The news outlets like Fox News are run by very wealthy people who pick and choose what they want to discuss and how they want to discuss something.
This story can be compared to women in the armed forces who are raped by their superiors. Women that are in the armed forces and are raped by their superiors have very little options on what they can do. Going against your superior is almost an impossible task in such a environment. That is a very clear example of abuse of power. Another example that is not as intense, but very relevant is the government and country. It was unknown that the government was essentially spying on its people without the people’s consent. Without Snowden, it would probably still be unknown that the government was using so many outlets to store information. This is a very controversial topic because some believe the government is right by doing this, while others believe this is an invasion of privacy. For those that believe it is an invasion of privacy, they might say it is an abuse of power.
The issue of church and state appears a lot in current events. I believe this is because a lot subconsciously see america as a catholic country with a lot of catholic values. For example, the issue of gay marriage. Since it is not in the bible that those of the same sex can get married, it apparently should not be allowed. But if there is church and state should be separate, what other reason allows state to deny gay marriage before it became legal nation wide. Another example is when during a republican debate, a candidate said there would never be a muslim president. Many americans seem to forget that muslim is a religion and not a race. There should not be a bias since there is supposed to be a separation of church and state. There are many more examples that can be said, but church and state comes up in many current events whether it be on purpose or accidentally.
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