“Spotlight” is a 2015 film that depicts the work of Boston Globe investigative journalists. It shows their dedication to investigating allegations of child predation in the Catholic Church. The film also shows their challenges and the hurdles they faced in pursuing the truth.
An outsider from Miami, Marty Baron, comes to the Globe as managing editor and kicks off the main story. During a roundtable, Marty brought up a column one of the journalists had written. He saw a story about an area priest accused of molesting children. He thought it was important to cover to inform the public. This showed the first major roadblock that the researching team ran into. Important documents with damning case information were under a court seal. Getting access to them wouldn’t be an easy task either. The public would view requesting the files as suing the church. They also ran the risk of losing some of their readership. Around half of their subscribers identified as Catholic. Baron also faced personal risk with recommending this story. The locals already viewed him as an outsider who didn’t know Boston. The first thing he did was challenge a core institution of their community. He started his job making critics and enemies in his community.
The journalists undertook a huge task with their investigation. They fell down a rabbit hole. Abuse was rampant and the church was systematically covering it up. They wanted to show how deep the roots of the scandal went. They would have to find as many offending priests and victims of abuse as they could. They also faced individual challenges when tackling this story. Sacha Pfeiffer and Michael Rezendes, both raised Catholic, had their faith questioned after seeing the atrocities taking place in the church. Pfeiffer felt that she could not, in good conscience, attend church with her grandmother after what she had learned. Matt Carroll, another journalist on the team, had to grapple with the confidentiality of his job and protecting children. While researching into the treatment centers that the church sent offenders to, he found one near his street. He had children and there were many families on the same street. He felt that he should warn his neighbors, but his work was confidential so he couldn’t.
The relentless church took many actions to halt the work of anyone digging into the issue. Lawyers who took priests to court had two options. Settle out of court for a pittance or be closely watched. In addition to the church making things difficult, the law itself contributed. Child sexual abuse has a three-year statute of limitations. Victims often don’t open up until much later in life, however. The only way the church would see punishment is to seek the court of public opinion.
This piece of investigative journalism shows how difficult these crimes are to try. Despite the many hurdles, the group found many people to help them with their story.
This story is very important and had a great impact when it was first published. The Boston Globe published the story with a phone tip line to the Spotlight office for victims to call. Staff members and many phones were relocated to deal with the stress. This long form investigation also kicked off a trend. Other areas across the world carried out their own investigations. The end credits showed over 200 taking place. This also served as a major turning point in the conversation surrounding sexual assault and abuse. Victims of child molestation at the hands of priests finally had their stories heard.
