The LA Press Club awarded its first ever Veritas Award to Spotlight. The new award is judged by members of the LA Press club and is based equally upon fidelity of subject matter and artistic excellence and hopefully will become a longstanding tradition. The clear-cut winner for 2015, determined by a membership vote, is Spotlight written by Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy and directed by McCarthy. Bridge of Spies was voted runner-up.
“We are honored and thrilled to have received the inaugural Veritas Award from the LA Press Club — especially given that it’s been such a great year for films based on true stories. Of course, any award from the LA Press Club is an honor, as the club has been supporting, promoting and defending journalism in Southern California for over a century. And we’re thrilled that they choose to award a film that celebrates incredible journalism. With the challenges the profession has confronted in this century, we hope this award helps to increase awareness of the need for local investigative journalism here in Southern California, around the country and around the world,” said the Spotlight filmmakers in a joint statement.
Spotlight is the true story of how the Boston Globe’s investigative team uncovered the massive child molestation scandal and cover-up within the Boston Catholic Archdiocese. The film follows the procedural and journalistic groundwork initiated by the Globe’s Editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) and overseen by Assistant Managing Editor Ben Bradlee, Jr. (John Slattery) and spearheaded by supervising editor, Walter Robinson (Michael Keaton) and their reporters: Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James)—all of whom from Catholic backgrounds and having their own mixed feelings about what they’re doing. The powerful political forces trying to bury the truth are confronted and defeated by reporters doing their job in perhaps the most authentic exposé since Woodward and Bernstein’s All The President’s Men.
“It seems only fitting our members would choose Spotlight for our inaugural Vertitas Award—a film based on an explosive piece of investigative journalism that explores the process to get it to print,” said LA Press Club President Robert Kovacik, Anchor/Reporter of NBC4 Southern California.
WHAT: The Veritas Award
WHEN: Thursday, February 25 at 6 p.m.
WHERE: Los Angeles Press Club @ The Steve Allen Theater (4773 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027)
WHO: The real Boston Globe heroes Sacha Pfeiffer, Ben Bradlee, Jr. and Mike Rezendes, along with surprise guests.
The Los Angeles Press Club stands as an organization devoted to improving the spirit of journalism and journalists, raising the industry’s standards, strengthening its integrity and improving its reputation all for the benefit of the community at large.
Serving the Southland since 1913, it is the only Southern California journalism group that speaks for all journalists working for daily and weekly newspapers, radio & TV, magazines, documentary films and online.
