One of the most depressing features of modern American society is the decline of the daily newspaper. Whenever I hear someone say, “I get my news on the Internet,” I wince. Many students told me this during my last few years of teaching, and they knew almost nothing of current news. Cat videos, yes. Facebook posting, yes. Hard news, not so much.
I was reminded again of the importance of investigative journalism when we saw “Spotlight” tonight. It follows a group of print reporters for the Boston Globe who uncovered the child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in which church officials knew about pedophile priests and did nothing except move them around and hush things up.
Boston is a very Catholic town, and most of the Globe’s subscribers were Catholic, but the paper did the job newspapers are supposed to do, which is to uncover the truth and make it known to the public.
Incidentally, the Boston Cardinal who knew all about the pedophile priests was promoted to a position in Rome.
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