Nevada Press Association The best in Nevada journalism since 1924
Comfort the afflicted. Afflict the comfortable. Have an Oscar-winning movie made about it.
That’s a journalism formula we’ve seldom seen since 1976, when All the President’s Men starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman caused a glut of students to seek J-school degrees and flood the market just as I was getting ready to look for a job.
Some of us, of course, read the book. A few even read the Watergate newspaper stories that led to President Nixon’s resignation. It was a heady time for reporters, who at least for awhile appeared to be respected and trusted.
These, as they say, are different times. Yet for a night, at least, the poor wretches of print can bask in the afterglow of a Hollywood awards ceremony recognizing a film that was made about honest, hard-working reporters — the kind that do it right, like thousands across the country every day.
I’ve not yet seen “Spotlight,” as I don’t go out of my way to see newspaper-related movies. If they’re true to life, they just seem like work. If they’re not, then I get frustrated they can’t get it right. (Like Sally Field in “Absence of Malice,” when she commits one journalistic sin after another without any editors apparently even noticing. But, as Roger Ebert wrote about that movie: “In the newspaper business we’re quick to spot the errors in movies about newspaper reporters, but where were we when the archaeologists squirmed over Harrison Ford’s barbaric conduct in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’?”)
Regardless, it must be a terrific movie. I’ll see it one of these days. In the meantime, I hope it reinforces the notion among publishers and owners that the worth of your newspaper can be measured two ways — in the value it provides with each day and each edition, and in the value it builds over time — year after year, decade after decade — to become such a credible source that it could take on the Catholic church in Boston.
Journalists are ready to tackle big, important stories. Customers are eager to read them. Give journalism a chance.
