UNITED STATES
Hamilton and Griffin on Rights

This blog entry is a brief guide to the documents, newspaper articles, and reports that are the basis of the movie Spotlight. If you wonder what Mike Rezendes is reading in the cab, or what’s in Phil Saviano’s box of documents, or what editor Marty Baron means when he says, “You’ve all done some very good reporting here,” read on.

The movie is the story of an article getting written:

Church Allowed Abuse by Priest for Years, by Michael Rezendes, Boston Globe (1/6/02)

It’s also about the fight to unseal some documents, and once those documents are unsealed, after the end of the movie, the Spotlight team will write this remarkable story:

Documents Show Church Long Supported Geoghan, by Walter V. Robinson and Matt Carroll, Boston Globe (1/24/02)

The emotional center of the movie is a cab ride through the…