Putting a Spotlight on Reporting

Gilda and I saw Spotlight Saturday night. It’s a great movie, perhaps the best of the year. Naturally, as a former newspaper reporter, I am biased. Almost any film about journalistic achievement or chicanery—fact-based or fiction, from All the President’s Men to The Paper to Libeled Lady and Deadline USA to The Front Page and its remake as His Girl Friday—would rate four stars from me.

For those not familiar with Spotlight, the film traces the effort of an investigative unit of the same name at The Boston Globe in 2001 to piece together the child molestation and cover-up scandal within the Roman Catholic church.

Nobody gets shot. There are no sex scenes. There are no chase scenes, though reporters are seen several times scurrying around tracking down leads.

I admired the attention to detail. The almost ragamuffin attire worn by reporters and editors. The total absorption, or rather immersion, or maybe obsession, reporters undergo when nailing down a story.

Reporting can be drudgery. Thankfully, everyday news is not a Watergate break-in or a mass shooting or a plane crash. It is the approval of zoning laws that might alter the character of a neighborhood. The adoption by the Board of Education of new curriculum. The placement of traffic lights that could make a busy thoroughfare pedestrian-safe. Sewer commission meetings are boring to anyone but the families that live along the street where pipes will be laid to replace their dependence on septic tanks.

Yet there may be hidden stories behind these everyday events. Payoffs for building approvals. Or for sewer lines that make it easier to build new subdivisions. Human interest profiles of accident victims on streets unsafe at any speed.

There’s an insightful scene in Spotlight when the new editor of The Globe, Marty Baron, meets Cardinal Bernard Law, archbishop of Boston, the first time. Law suggests the two institutions—the church and paper—would best serve Boston by working together. To which Baron replies he believes newspapers work best if they act independently.

It is a creed I followed. I never got too close to those I wrote about or to those who supported my publication with advertising. Who knows? Perhaps my magazine didn’t garner all the advertising it could because I was too distant from those who paid our bills. Or maybe we missed uncovering some inside dope on a retailer that would have justified banner headlines? 

As I watched the Spotlight story come together I became angry, introspective and more melancholy. Angered by the gall and audacity the church and its allies exhibited toward the victims and unsuspecting parishioners. They thought themselves above the law (pun intended). I was saddened by the realization that none of the stories I did as a newspaper reporter and trade magazine editor, good as they were, had the intensity and life-altering drama Spotlight exposed. I was envious.

Good trade magazines have to tiptoe along a line that separates boosterism from constructive review. One of the first meetings I had with a CEO of a retail chain centered on a complaint over an article that questioned the retail industry’s response to the vast numbers thrown out of work by the failure of W.T. Grant. The CEO of G.C. Murphy saw Chain Store Age as an advocate for the industry. How dare we expose any warts. 

I wondered how our chief editor, John Lightfoot, would respond. He said the magazine was an objective chronicler of the good and the bad.

I agreed with John. So did the president-owner of our company. We had no rug under which we swept inefficiency or bad leadership. It didn’t matter if it was Sears or Kmart, Wal-Mart or American Apparel, or Abercrombie & Fitch. When mistakes of strategy or judgment were made Chain Store Age would not be silent.

It might not have been on the same plane as that of Spotlight at The Globe, but our editorial staff did its best to watch over the best interests of our constituency. 

Be Ethical and Advocate for Social Justice

I found this quote in a BBC News article on the partial shutdown of the U.S. government rather amusing and disturbing:

“Paul Broun of Georgia, who is currently running for a Senate seat, said he would not vote for legislation that ‘does not fit the Judeo-Christian biblical principles that our country was founded on’.”

Among the 84 votes that the Republican congressman has cast against the wishes of his party’s leadership was a vote last January to deny disaster aid to Hurricane Sandy victims. 

Christian charity!?! Harrumph!!!

I wonder, just which biblical principles do Broun and his fellow travelers agree with? Do they include polygamy? Or slavery? Or perhaps he’s in favor of, according to Jewish law, land redistribution to original owners every 50 years when the jubilee comes around? There are lots more inconsistencies between Broun’s and the Bible’s views on the way one’s life should be conducted, but perhaps the deepest chasm is between the latter’s exhortation to care for the needy and the former’s indifference to the plight of his fellow man, woman and child.

As the fight over Obamacare has shown, the world is living in increasingly doctrinaire times. Dogma for dogma’s sake. Fie on good will and fellowship. Principles and partisanship over peace and probity. 

Even Pope Francis is feeling the heat from those within the Catholic Church who wonder what happened to their ecclesiastical leader. Why is he emphasizing serving the people and not the papacy with its crimson-robed functionaries? 

No religion is immune to internecine bickering, though Islam seems to be more bent on warfare from within than dialogue. How disrespectful of another point of view are the repeated bombings of mosques and funerals by those not sharing the attacker’s version of Islam. Hundreds of years ago Christianity—Catholics, Protestants, Russian Orthodox—fought its share of wars of intolerance. Two thousand years ago Jewish factions killed those who didn’t agree with their visions of Mosaic law. 

With few exceptions, today’s Jews don’t kill one another, even when the debate is over their existence in Israel and the lands conquered in the Six Day War in 1967. There are, however, ongoing battles for the soul of the Jewish state in Israel and for the soul of Jews in the Diaspora. In Israel, the debate has many levels. One is over territory and security. Neither side wants to undermine the security of Israelis, but those who would relinquish total control of the West Bank see nothing secure about continued control of more than a million Palestinians. It would be state suicide to confer citizenship on the Palestinians; it would destroy the Jewish soul to retain the Palestinians in their current stateless condition. 

On another level, the secular foundations of Israel are under assault. Ultra-Orthodox Jews are pressuring for a more rigidly religious state, one that increasingly separates women from men. They haven’t blown anybody up, but they have exhibited behaviors abhorrent to Western sensibilities. 

The soul of the Jewish Diaspora, particularly in America, is in play, as well, as highlighted by this week’s release of a survey of U.S. Jews by the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project. In a nutshell, the study found fewer American Jews identify with their religion’s rules or religious institutions, though they continue “to feel pride in being Jewish and have a strong sense of belong to the greater Jewish community.” As the Associated Press reported, their connection is based mostly on culture and ancestry. “A large majority said remembering the Holocaust, being ethical and advocating for social justice formed the core of their Jewish identity.”

Being ethical and advocating for social justice. Nothing restrictive about those values. Be ethical to all. Advocate for social justice for all. Yes, remember the Holocaust, but also remember that other religions and people have their tragedies to commemorate. That’s also a part of being ethical and advocating for social justice.  

Capitol Gains, Unholy Acts, Billions and a Beauty

Capitol Gains? He’s tall, lanky, decently good looking, but not my type, and I’m not talking about sexual attraction. I’m talking politics. Paul Ryan, the wunderkind of the Republican Party with the widow’s peak dark hair line (a little like Eddie from “The Munsters”), passed me on a walkway into the U.S. Capitol. I realized too late who it was to stop him and express my thoughts. Besides, he was engaged in conversation with another man. 

As he paused at the steps where only congressmen may enter the Capitol, I alerted the eight Israeli women I was chaperoning they had just seen one of the most powerful men in the country. It was a far more exciting moment than what they had just witnessed from the gallery of the House of Representatives. The House was in session, if you could call it that. Barely a dozen members sat in the seats reserved for 435 members. We watched parts of two presentations, the congressmen speaking to the balcony, or more precisely, to the cameras affixed to the balcony so their words could be beamed back to their districts and recorded for posterity. 

It wasn’t easy explaining American politics to women who daily tend to trauma victims along the Gaza Strip or in a shelter for battered women and children in Jerusalem. They have political concerns of their own, especially after a major initiative was announced this week to forge a coalition government of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party with the more left-leaning Kadima. One of the hopes among many Israelis and supporters of Israel around the world is that this new government majority will be able to reduce the influence of ultra-religious parties in the daily lives of Israelis. Israel is a Jewish, democratic state; it was never intended to be the religious state it was increasingly being turned into by the power ultra-religious parties exerted because of their ability to make or break coalitions.  

Holier Than Thou—Not! Deviant behavior is not restricted to any one group. The “pleasure” many in the Jewish community took in the decades-long troubles of the Catholic Church with sex abuse cases while virtually nothing came to light among their brethren has vanished now that details of extensive abuses and cover-ups within Hasidic communities have been reported in The NY Times. 

Whereas in the Catholic Church perpetrators were shielded from punishment by leaders of the church, the Hasidic sects, from their rebbe leaders to their “blind” followers, ostracized the victims and their families for coming forward, not those who assaulted and abused. 

It’s another shameful example of religion working against, not for, the benefit of those who need it most.

So How Come I’m Not a Billionaire? Or at least related to one. 

After I returned from Washington, Gilda was very excited to show me an article in New York magazine. It was the cover story, “The Zuckerbergs of Dobbs Ferry.” Zuckerbergs, as in Mark Zuckerberg, he of Facebook fame and fortune.

Seems the Zuckerberg parents bought their Westchester home in 1978 (so did we). Seems Ed Zuckerberg was an early adopter of home computer technology, especially online banking using a Citibank modem (so was Gilda). Seems Ed’s wife, Karen, ridiculed him for using a computer to pay bills rather than simply writing a check (as I ridiculed Gilda). 

Ed and Karen Zuckerberg still live in Dobbs Ferry. We still live in White Plains. The similarities end there, except for the fact Ed has a scraggly salt and pepper beard like mine. He might have more money, but I have more hair.

Bio Pic: I heard Vanessa Williams talking on NPR about a memoir, “You Have No Idea,” she and her mother Helen wrote about their lives, particularly her selection in 1983 as the first Afro-American Miss America. For those not familiar with the full story, Williams was stripped of her title late in her one-year reign because of nude pictures she had posed for prior to her selection. Release of the photos did not jive with the pure-as-driven-snow image the Miss America pageant wanted to cultivate.

During her reign Williams was a spokesperson for American Greetings. The Cleveland-based greetings card company brought Williams to the annual Houswares Show in Chicago. It was there, as editor of Chain Store Age, I met Williams and had my picture taken with her. She was (still is) beautiful. 

Media Daze

Every time I hear Eliot Spitzer I get sooooo angry. Not because I don’t like him. Rather, because I generally agree with what he says and his fall from grace has deprived New York and country of a leader who could have made a difference. Now, he’s just another talking head, albeit one who makes sense and isn’t too pompous and self-righteous. Like most pols, he has an ego, but he’s working hard to control it.

The former governor and attorney general of New York, or Client #9 in the federal sex probe that cost him his leadership of New York State and potential national candidacy, is now a host on Current TV. Yesterday he was interviewed on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show. ‘Twas an earnest analysis of issues, well worth your listening to: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2012/may/02/eliot-spitzers-viewpoint/

Holy Communion: I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with some of the positions emanating from the Catholic Church. I support its call for a higher minimum wage in New York. 

But my real communion is for the criticism Catholic bishops have heaped on Rep. Paul Ryan, a fellow Catholic, for his budget proposal that would strip government support for the needy. As explained by Father Thomas Reese of Georgetown University on Tuesday’s The Colbert Report, the Catholic hierarchy believes Ryan’s budget would cut benefits to the poor and hungry while enriching the rich. 

Here’s a clip of Stephen Colbert’s interview with Father Reese. You’ll also see and hear how duplicitous politicians can be and how easy it is to expose them in this age of everything-you-say-is-recorded-and-will-be-played-back-at-some-future-date: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/413499/may-01-2012/paul-ryan-s-budget---thomas-reese.

Let’s Get Real: Over lunch yesterday I caught up with last Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher. I won’t tax you with another link. Instead, here’s a quote from Bill himself I thought was particularly cogent: 

“Mitt Romney is running on the question, ‘Can I run this economy better than Barack Obama?’ 

“How can you run on this idea that I’m going to take over an economy that my party ruined?” 

Like Maher, I’m baffled that anyone, even die-hard Republicans, would believe the ideas of the party that turned a record surplus into two debt-producing wars and an unpaid prescription drug benefit program could be palatable to any voter with memory.

Catch Up, Not Ketchup: Here’s another example of why my wife is a foodie. For years Gilda’s been an advocate of dark meat when it comes to eating chicken. It seems the rest of the consuming world is catching up to her. Cluck along as you read this: http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268802/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=Wff78MGb

Rider of the Purple Sage: Last weekend Gilda enlisted me (notice I didn’t volunteer) to help with some yard work. Heavy lifting stuff, like moving five 50 lb. bags of potting soil. After she trimmed some bushes I collected the discarded branches, some for kindling, the rest for collection by city crews. I noticed the pile of brush resembled a tumbleweed, which brought back memories of my one and only trip to Reno 34 years ago. I was in Nevada to cover the opening of a J.C. Penney catalog distribution center. 

As I sped down the highway—everybody speeds along Nevada highways—I saw tumbleweeds blowing towards me. There were tumbleweeds in every lane. They were as wide as my car. Have you ever collided with a tumbleweed? I hadn’t. I’m not ashamed to say I was pretty scared. I couldn’t take any evasive action. We collided. At least that’s what I think happened, for you see, when a tumbleweed hits a car it vaporizes into thin air. All that frenzy and fear for nothing more than “poof!” 

Victory, At Last: I had expected to post this blog entry last night but wound up enthralled by the triple overtime NY Rangers 2-1 win over the Washington Capitals in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The game, which started at 7:40, didn’t end until 12:14 am this morning. 

During high school and through college I was a rabid hockey fan; I lost interest in the Rangers when most, if not all, of my favorite players retired or were traded. My passion renewed during the Mark Messier era of the early 1990s. When Messier delivered on his promise of a Stanley Cup in 1994, the first one for the Rangers in 54 years, I was the most happy for any championship any of my teams in any sport ever won. When the Rangers let Messier go in a contract dispute a year or so later, my allegiance became dormant again. I didn’t follow the team during this past regular season, so I’m a little lost recognizing players by their numbers or faces. Nonetheless, the viewing intensity is still there. 

Watching Stanley Cup hockey wears you out. Scoring is typically low; every touch of the puck can be a game changer, every miscue can result in a goal, or a fantastic save. Gilda was fast asleep when the game ended, so I couldn’t shout “goooooal” when Marian Gaborik poked a perfect pass from Brad Richards through the pads of Washington goalie Braden Holtby to finally end the contest four and a half hours after it began. Sudden death. Sudden victory.