Eve Samples: Editor that sparked ‘Spotlight’ investigation got his start in Florida

By Eve Samples
Naples Daily News
December 18, 2015

http://www.naplesnews.com/entertainment/movies/Eve-Samples-Editor-that-sparked-Spotlight-investigation-got-his-start-in-Florida-362985971.html

FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2015 file photo, Marty Baron, former editor of The Boston Globe, walks the red carpet as he attends the Boston area premiere of the film "Spotlight" at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, in Brookline, Mass. The film that tells the story of how The Boston Globe reported on the clergy sex abuse scandal.

There's a scene in the movie "Spotlight" that Marty Baron gets asked about all the time.

It's his first day on the job as editor of The Boston Globe. The year is 2001. Baron (played by actor Liev Schreiber) is in a news meeting, and other editors are describing the stories their reporters are chasing.

Baron asks, rather directly, how the newsroom plans to follow up on a column about secrecy surrounding the case against a priest, Rev. John Geoghan, accused of serial sexual abuse of children.

Baron suggests challenging the Catholic Church in court to unseal legal documents that could reveal the role of church leaders.

Silence follows.

"The general response when there's silence is, 'Why don't we talk about it after the meeting?' " Baron said, recalling the real-life scene.

During a telephone interview last week, I pressed Baron on this.

How did he have the guts, on Day 1, to challenge the most powerful institution in his new city?

He didn't see the move as gutsy. It's the essence of a journalist's job.

"Our work is to go and find out what the truth is," Baron said. "Especially if there's evidence of wrongdoing, we should be making every effort to find out, how do we get to the truth?"

Journalists are supposed to reveal facts when they are cloaked; to find stories where they aren't obvious or easy.

Those are practices Baron has embraced for almost 40 years as a journalist — starting in Stuart, Florida.

The Tampa native's first job out of college was as a reporter in what was then the Stuart bureau of the Miami Herald — during an era when newspaper competition was fierce on the Treasure Coast.

It was 1976, and Baron lived a couple of blocks from Confusion Corner in downtown Stuart, in an apartment on the St. Lucie River.

This is why I called Baron — because of his connection to the city where I have made my living as a journalist for more than a decade. I wanted to know how his time here — a short but formative nine months — helped him become the kind of editor who could spark an investigation like the one depicted in "Spotlight."