“Spotlight” shows journalism at its best, Catholic Church at its worst

UNITED STATES
Saint Peters Blog

By Tom Ohara – Nov 30, 2015

If you want to be simultaneously appalled and inspired, go see the movie “Spotlight.”

It’s about the Boston Globe’s 2001-2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the Boston archdiocese’s decades-long cover-up of child sex abuse by its priests and brothers.

The film is unusual because it portrays people doing actual journalism. There are no gaggles of goofballs with microphones shouting stupid questions in a hallway.

“Spotlight,” the name of the newspaper’s investigative team, shows that quality journalism is usually the result of a dogged slog.

One of the heroes is Marty Baron, a Tampa-born guy who as the Globe’s new editor in 2001 asked some unpleasant questions about the paper’s coverage of the scandal.

The investigative team found the disturbing answers: that the archdiocese knew about the extent of the abuse for decades and used its considerable money and power to cover it up.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.