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And the Oscar Goes to ... ‘spotlight’?

By Paul Janensch
TCPalm
February 25, 2016

http://www.tcpalm.com/opinion/guest-columns/and-the-oscar-goes-to--spotlight-2ab74926-bfb1-0399-e053-0100007f8286-370110941.html

Washington Post editor Marty Baron (right) answered questions about the journalism industry from Treasure Coast Newspapers editor Mark Tomasik on Jan. 20 at Temple Beit HaYam in Stuart. Baron was editor at The Boston Globe during a 2003 Pulitzer Prize winning investigation depicted in the recent movie “Spotlight.” (LEAH VOSS/TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS)

My choice for best picture of 2015 is "Spotlight."

This extraordinary movie shows us how reporters and editors at The Boston Globe exposed the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests in the Boston area.

We'll find out if it wins the Oscar for best picture when ABC brings us the Academy Awards at 8:30 p.m. Sunday.

I was the editor of another newspaper that informed the public of sexual abuse by priests. More on that angle later.

"Spotlight" already has won a number of awards after receiving rave reviews. Even the Catholic News Service called it "illuminating."

The movie takes its name from the Globe's Spotlight investigative team, which began looking into sex-abuse cases in 2001 under then new editor Martin Baron and despite the opposition of Cardinal Bernard Law, who covered up the scandal.

Not only a gripping drama, "Spotlight" is the most accurate movie portrayal of how good journalists do their work since "All the President's Men."

They knock on doors. They pore over records. They argue among themselves. They stand up to bullying by the powerful. They seek the truth.

In the movie, Marty Baron, now 61, is played by Liev Schreiber, who captures the editor's low-key tenacity.

Baron grew up in Tampa. His first job out of Lehigh University was in The Miami Herald's Stuart bureau (since closed). He lived in an apartment near Confusion Corner and covered Martin County.

After rising up the ranks at the Herald, he moved to The Los Angeles Times and then The New York Times. Baron returned to the Herald as the executive editor in 2000. He directed coverage of the disputed 2000 presidential election vote count in Florida and the return of young Elian Gonzalez to Cuba, for which the newspaper's staff won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001.

That same year, Baron was named news chief of the Globe. At an editors' meeting his first day on the job, he asked what was being done to follow up a column about secrecy surrounding a case against a priest accused on sexual abuse of minors.

No one said anything.

Baron decided the newspaper should petition the court to unseal documents that could reveal the role of the Roman Catholic archdiocese.

That was the beginning of the Spotlight investigation.

In 2013, Baron took over as executive editor of The Washington Post. In 2014, the Post won a Pulitzer for its revelations about spying by the National Security Agency.

Ten years before the Globe's disclosures, I was the new editor of the Telegram & Gazette in Worcester, Massachusetts, west of Boston.

Soon after I started, I learned that priests in the Worcester diocese had sexually abused minors but the offenses were kept secret. We started investigating.

Men who said they had been victims as boys consented to be interviewed. They asked not to be named. I already had established a policy that anyone quoted in a staff-written story must be named and persuaded the men to let us identify them.

We published several stories about such cases on Page 1 under restrained headlines.

A monsignor who was executive assistant to the bishop called me to say that I, a Mass-going Catholic, was a disgrace to the church.

In 2003, the Globe won a Pulitzer for "comprehensive coverage of sexual abuse by priests."

In 2016, I hope "Spotlight" wins the Oscar.

Paul Janensch, a seasonal resident of Vero Beach, was a newspaper editor and taught journalism at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. His email address is paul.janensch@quinnipiac.edu.

 

 

 

 

 




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