Spotlight

I saw the movie Spotlight, and I hoped it would win the Oscar for best picture.  Mark Ruffalo was just fantastic as a passionate reporter who believes in the power of the fourth estate and its unique ability to expose the wrongdoings of seemingly untouchable institutions and people.

I was a journalist early in my career, either practicing it or teaching it, and the last part of it was spent in pr working with the press in one way or another.  Printer’s ink runs in my veins, but sadly today, I subscribe to only one printed newspaper, one day a week, the Sunday New York Times.  Whether you agree with its editorial policy or not, it still boasts of some of the best writing in the world.

Most of my news these days comes from Twitter where I follow every news outlet I can think of including the BBC and other international organizations.  As should be everyone’s practice, I read news blurbs with a healthy dose of skepticism, then go directly to the longer version for the whole story. Coincidently, I have just finished reading former Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham’s autobiography Personal History, a massive tale of her life that is riveting in its pace and content. Kate gives a behind-the-scene insider’s view of how the Post management handled the Watergate affair.  I dog-eared this passage to share as a reminder of just what the fourth estate means to America, especially now.  Have politicians learned anything from the Nixon scandal?  What do you think?

“As astounding as Watergate was to the country and the government, it underscored the crucial role of a free, able, and energetic press.  We saw how much power the government has to reveal what it wants when it wants, to give the people only the authorized version of events.  We re-learned the lessons of the importance of the right of a newspaper to keep its sources confidential.

“The credibility of the press stood the test of time against the credibility of those who spent so much time self-righteously denying their own wrongdoing and assaulting us by assailing our performance and our motives.  In a speech I made in 1970 – before the Pentagon Papers and before Watergate – I said: “[T]he cheap solutions being sought by the administration will, in the long run, turn out to be very costly.” And indeed they did.”

Katharine Graham, Personal History. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1997; rpt. New York, First Vantage Book Edition, 1998.