Lehigh Grad on Role in Boston Globe's Spotlight Investigation: We Didn't Know It Would Still Haunt Church Today
By Christina Tatu
Marty Baron, executive editor of the Washington Post and a graduate of Lehigh University, will return to his alma mater Thursday for a free screening and discussion of "Spotlight," the Oscar Best Picture contender dramatizing the Boston Globe's investigation into child sexual abuse by Catholic priests. As the Globe's editor, Baron, 61, oversaw the paper's 2002 investigation exposing the depth of child sexual abuse and a massive cover-up in the Boston Archdiocese. The investigation earned a Pulitzer Prize, and the digging by the paper's investigative Spotlight team — for which the movie is named — sparked similar investigations and shocking revelations all over the country. Baron, whose career included stints at the Miami Herald, New York Times and Los Angeles Times, recently answered questions about the investigation, movie and his time at Lehigh. Q. Why did you choose Lehigh University and what activities did you participate in? A. When I was looking at colleges, I wanted to go somewhere above the Mason-Dixon Line. I felt fairly confident I would get in. I was a good student. I went there from 1972 to 1976. At the time, they had a five-year arts MBA program, so you would get a bachelor of arts degree, and in the fifth year you would get an MBA. I determined that if I was rigorous, I could finish it all at the same time. I was involved very much in the Brown and White [student newspaper]. I got involved in the yearbook, but mostly I spent all of my free time on the Brown and White more than I did on classes. Q. How did you get interested in journalism? A. My parents were immigrants [from Israel]. They were very interested in what was happening in the world, in what was happening in this new country of theirs. We had a routine in our household. They got the [Tampa Tribune] every morning. In the evening, there was the local news at 6 p.m., and then the national news at 6:30 p.m. They watched NBC News with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. …They watched that every night, and so keeping up on the news was part of their routine, and I think it contributed to my interest. I started getting interested in junior high school. In high school, I started working on my high school paper and became editor in my senior year. Every summer when I was in college, I did an internship at the Tampa Tribune, my hometown paper. Q. What did you think about the movie's portrayal of events? A. I was very pleased with how the movie portrayed things. It was the overall outline of how the investigation unfolded.… I think it's important to recognize it is a movie and not a documentary, so there is some dramatic license. Q. How much time did producers spend researching for the movie and how much were you involved in that research? A. [Director Tom McCarthy and writer Josh Singer] interviewed all the journalists who are the central characters. They interviewed us for hours on end, they looked at emails people had saved and every legal document that was available — and that's lots and lots of them. Liev Schreiber [who portrays Baron] came to my office at the Washington Post and we talked for a bit less than two hours. I was able to review the screenplay a couple times and provide my commentary on it, and my colleagues in Boston were also able to review the movie. Q. What did you think when you learned they wanted to make a movie about the Spotlight team? A. I never went into this business with the expectation I would be portrayed in a movie, and frankly, I never expected this movie to be made. … Even when I read the screenplay, I wasn't sure it would get made. It was a very difficult movie to finance. One, it deals with a very sensitive subject and a controversial subject. It doesn't have any special effects or car chases, and there are no cartoons, none of the stuff that generally draws people to movies today. ... Finally, it was at a time when the world got a new pope. …The church finally acquired a new pope who was popular with the public, and I thought for sure that would kill off the movie. Q. What did you think when you first saw the movie? A. I first saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival [in September 2015]. I had not seen it on the big screen until that point. It was a very emotional moment. There were 2,000 people in a gigantic theater [Princess of Wales Theatre]. To see and hear the reaction of the audience affected me a lot. It finally dawned on me that the whole world would know this story. Q. Did you have any inclination of how big the Spotlight team's investigation would be? A. We certainly didn't go into this knowing it would become an international story that would haunt the church to this day. Once we reported our first story, it became clear this was certainly going to be huge in Boston and would have a huge impact on the cardinal [Bernard Law]. We did 600 stories on it in the first year alone, and probably 900 stories over the first year-and-a-half. We certainly realized this was having a profound impact on the church nationally and internationally, and the church was having to respond to this. Q. Were you shocked at the number of sexual abuse cases uncovered by the Spotlight team? A. What was more astonishing, or more important to me, was what did the church do when it became aware of the abuse, when it became aware of serial abuse by priests? Was it the policy and practice of the church to cover it up? Was it the policy and practice of the church to reassign priests without any notification to parishioners, thus allowing [those priests] to abuse again and again? It turned out that was the policy and practice of the church and it had been implemented by [Cardinal Law] in Boston, and it was the policy and practice that existed throughout the United States, and almost certainly throughout the world. Q. What do you think about investigative journalism today? A. There is still good investigative journalism taking place. We can see that every year with the Pulitzer Prize winners. I think we should all take pride in that. That said, resources available to news organizations to embark on long-term investigative reporting are much diminished … in comparison to what they used to be. I can't say there is no investigative reporting going on, but what I think I can say is not enough is happening, and we need more of it. I think public officials, in particular, and I think powerful institutions and individuals are aware there is less attention being paid to them than there had been in the past, so I think it is important we recommit and find the resources within our organizations to do that. Q. What did you think about Liev Schreiber's playing you in the movie? A. I was very honored Liev Schreiber took on this role. I don't think I'm the easiest person to portray, as I've said many times: How do you portray someone who does not emote? I am not someone who shows a lot of emotion in my job. It's a hugely challenging role. Q. Are you excited to return to Lehigh for the movie screening? A. It's always fun to be back on campus. I really valued my experience at Lehigh, and I feel indebted to the school, not only for my education, but for the values instilled in me at Lehigh. For me, my time at Lehigh was a very rewarding experience, so I would like to give back in any way I can. Q. Do you have any advice for young journalists? A. I think people interested in journalism should go into it, and if it's their passion, I don't think they should be dissuaded by all the pessimism that surrounds the industry. I think it's really important that anyone wanting to go into journalism learn all the basics of how to report and how to write. I think it's important they be critical thinkers and writers. I think it's important they feel an emotional attachment to our core mission of telling the truth.
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