THE 10-year-old film Spotlight was recently added to Netflix in Pakistan. It`s an old-time favourite; understandably so as it`s based on events at a newspaper in the US. The decade-old film is about the award-winning coverage, shortly after 9/11, by the American paper The Boston Globe, of a child abuse scandal in the Catholic church. The paper won a Pulitzer for the series ofstoriesit did on theissue.

Truthfully, one of the reasons the film is a favourite is because it is of a world that perhaps no longer exists but is missed sorely by the likes of myself. A world where newspapers ruled the world of journalism, where money was aplenty and resources would be poured into teams that did investigative reports, spending months and more before something was published. It was a time when celebrity pundits and lone star podcasters did not hold forth and command all the attention. Instead, ordinary hacks, without much fame or fortune, could pool in time and effort and produce something worthy of awards and films. And it brought prestige. Which is why the owners would find the money for it.

But the film doesn`t just offer nostalgia for dinosaurs such as myself. It is also the way it has been made. Quietly and calmly, in an un-Hollywood-like way, it tackles a difficult and extraordinary subject without sensationalism. It`s not about hotshot reporters who are meeting unknown sources in dark, shadowy basements for cryptic messages. It`s a film about solid journalism by hardworking reporters where the story is not hidden but the dots have to be connected, for which people pound pavements, knock on doors, pore over documents, sketch the outline, and add details and colour painstakingly before the larger picture emerges.

Indeed, there is no breaking news here to be played on a bright screen where the colours are never still, forcing the viewer to stand trans-fixed. The film begins at a moment when the news is already public of a priest having been accused of molestation. In fact, there are stories about more than one wayward priest with multiple allegations against him, as the victims pursued cases for financial compensation. The time limit in law for abuse cases is short, and by the time the victims came forward, it was too late.

However, the widespread assumption was that these cases were about the `bad eggs` within.

A new editor at the paper pushes the investigative team to explore the matter further, leading to the award-winning exposé about how widespread the abuse is and the collusion of the church in hiding the abuse and protecting those accused of it.

There are no `gotcha` moments in the film. No dramatic scenes, no flourish just a quiet, linear progression. The magnitude and horror of the abuse come through the acts themselves, when the victims, mostly grown men, tell their story men who find it difficult to describe what happened years earlier, dredging up old memories in response to questions by reporters.

The abusers are faceless, as such; those who helped hide their crimes are not.

But there is more to the story, ie, the city which is the backdrop against which this story unfolds.

Boston was America`s largest Catholic city when the scandal broke. The church played a key role in the city`s social and cultural life. Even most of the journalists working at the paper come from a Catholic family or have gone to a church-run school; their social milieu is, to a large extent, dominated by the religious institute or its various guardians. The new editor of The Boston Globe (who lands in the city as the film begins) is scheduled to have a meeting with the cardinal in town, because how could the head of one Boston institution not meet the one running another? Against this backdrop run the humanvignettes of reporters who grapple with the burden of investigating what has been happening around them. There is the reporter who finds it difficult to accompany her grandmother to the church as they find out more; the journalist whose close friends ask him why the paper is looking into these matters at the behest of a new editor who is an `outsider`; the burden of guilt as most of them realise they had ignored all the telltale signs of widespread abuse.

And with this comes anger and disillusionment with an institution which had played a huge role in the life of the city. This disillusionment is perhaps the part of the story that continues to date. Since the abuse scandalbroke, the church has struggled with the fallout the loss of faith and the disenchantment of followers especially as its response to the abuse has continued to be one of damage control. The perception is that the church has continued to protect its interests over the victims or its followers.

Consider that when the cardinal in Boston resigns in the aftermath of the story (for the reportage linked him with the cover-up of the abuse) he is transferred to Rome where he is given a prestigious assignment.

In the decade since this film came out, the church continues to grapple with this issue.

What the film is able to show so well is how those who trusted the church were let down in their hour of need. And this is perhaps a lesson for other institutions also; trust is lost when the institutional interest is put ahead of those who are supposed to follow. Once it is lost, platitudes, assurances and lectures about sincerity do not prove enough. The lived experience cannot be erased so easily. The matter may not be as grievous as abuse but the lessons can still apply to so much else. • The writer is a joumalist.