The film Spotlight directed by Tom McCarthy tells the unbelievable true story of the quartet of reporters at The Boston Globe known as Spotlight, and their fight to uncover and expose the disgusting truth hidden by the Catholic Church. The film largely focuses on the journalism at work between the staff of Spotlight, which gives us a first hand look at the importance of the staffs leadership and their decision making throughout the film. The film Spotlight shows the benefits of having effective communication as a team through the Spotlight staff, while also giving us a as a more broader take on Communication and Media as a whole.
The Spotlight staff is the epitome of a team with effective communication, this is prominent in the staff's leadership as well as their tough decision making. The leader of the Spotlight staff, Martin Baron, seems to be somewhat of an autocratic leader, he knows he has the power although it may be a new environment, and he also knows what decisions need to be made that would be right for The Globe. We see this is the film when we are first introduced to Baron when he tells Robby that he thinks he can do better for The Globe when he asks about The Globes statistics on how they're doing. This shows Barons confidence and own self-monitoring right away which are two essential characteristics of an autocratic leader.
Martin Baron also arguably makes the toughest decision in the film which is essentially the main focus of the film itself. That decision was to go forward with the story of the priests abusing kids and uncover what happened. Not only did he want to go after the story but he wanted to make sure they did it right, by going after the entire system to truly expose the evil within the church. This decision by Baron would have a tremendous after effect on media and the church in the upcoming months. Without Baron, the decision might have never been made since the Spotlight team seemed a bit stagnant before his arrival,
The relationship between media and communication in the film is something that intertwines perfectly being that the film is about a newspaper company and their desire to communicate this important information to their readers and hoping that it is received well. During the time period that this film was set it, The Boston Globe was a huge mainstream media company that everyone within the area read and consumed their news from. Being such a heavy hitter in the media world, The Globe had an important responsibility to communicate these important findings. Due to the story at hand, and the fact that most of their staff as well as readers were also Catholic, The Globe, or more so the Spotlight team faced some tough challenges to make sure that this story was received in a way that would not offend or lose readers but also to make sure that the story was received by everyone and not just Catholics in order to really expose the problem.
Due to the well oiled machine that is the Spotlight Team they were able to do just that. They cracked open one of the Catholic Churches biggest secrets and they wouldn't of been able to achieve this goal without their effective communication as a team. That a long with their leaders tough decision making and delegation lead them to even win a Pulitzer Prize of outstanding achievement in newspaper journalism. The film Spotlight gives you a first hand look at the grind of true journalism and hard work it takes to truly be a team with effective communication. It also shows how being a team with effective communication can allow you to send a very difficult message out to a large audience and still have that audience receive it in the way that it was truly intended.