UNITED STATES
City Beat
BY BEN L. KAUFMAN · FEBRUARY 5TH, 2016
Thirty years ago, Jason Berry and National Catholic Reporter ignited Americans’ awareness of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. Yup, it’s been in the news media at least that long.
Twenty-four years ago, Boston Globe’s Alison Bass wrote about a Massachusetts priest accused of molesting at least 100 altar boys and girls.
Fourteen years ago, the Globe’s “Spotlight” investigative team produced the first of its stories about priestly sexual abuse and hierarchy coverup.
Now, the film Spotlight tells the Boston Globe story and is nominated for Best Picture of 2015.
Missing from much of the adulation in the news media is credit for the Berry/NCR courage and pioneering investigative journalism and the reporting by Alison Bass and her Boston Globe colleagues.
It’s as if no gruff old editor growled, “Did you check the clips?”
Berry’s been at our dinner table, talking shop; I’d been a longtime NCR correspondent in Minneapolis and Cincinnati and the Enquirer religion reporter.
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