What are the main issues that the film highlights about that media industry?

Media Industry

The Freedom of the Press

Journalistic Professionalism

It describes the area of journalism and is related to the newspaper or press media industry. From my perspective, the main issue that this film emphasizes about the media industry is freedom of the press and journalistic professionalism.

The Freedom of the Press

Press freedom is the concept that means citizens can express their opinions freely through all kinds of legal channels (UN 2017). A news concept that is independent of all authorities and has a strong anti-authority mentality is known as journalism professionalism (Guo 2004). Journalists have the responsibility to report facts objectively and accurately when digging for the truth of the matter. Just as the questions Jeff sparrow asked in the Guardian, ‘Who has the knowledge and time to search through corporate records to find evidence of a multinational company polluting a river?’ Obviously, the answer is journalists.

In Spotlight, Robinson and his team were hampered by local officials. There are forces inside and outside the church pressuring them to drop the case. Because a deeper investigation is bound to involve Religious beliefs and moral and ethical issues. According to the theory of power and inequality, if the media loses its independence and is controlled by the government or authority, it will be unable to report the true news (Mcquail 2020). In that case, the news reported by this media is only what the authorities want the public to see, not the truth.

Journalistic Professionalism

At the beginning of this film, It describes the scene of the busy work of journalists. When people think of journalism, they probably think of newspapers. It is mainly because newspapers have always been the main centres of news resources. They employ a large number of journalists, offer internships and training programmes, and are the most important places for imparting experience in journalistic methods (Cunningham 2014).

In the Spotlight trailer, there is such a narration, ‘This is not about Boston, it’s about our country, about our world. It could be you, it could be me, it could be any one of us.’ The Spotlight team broke the silence to analyse deeper (Drohan 2016). They are always on the road to the investigation.

The role of the media is to protect the public interest and monitor governmental operations. Spotlight's journalists were not afraid of pressure from the church and authorities. They did a lot of research and interviewed the victims to ensure their reporting was accurate. They were trying to find witnesses to testify for the victims. Just as the Spotlight team members said, “I am here. Because I care.” Their tenacious spirit of justice touched many people. That’s what media practitioners need to do: holding the powerful to account and preventing abuse of power.

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Therefore, this film emphasizes the lack of freedom of the press in some news cases and the importance of journalistic professionalism.