NORTH CAROLINA
News & Observer
BY JOSH SHAFFER
jshaffer@newsobserver.com
A year ago, the Oscar-winning film “Spotlight” introduced the world to Phil Saviano, a Boston activist abused by a pedophile priest, a whistle-blower with a cardboard box full of evidence.
The film shows his repeated attempts to draw The Boston Globe into the story of widespread abuse covered up and ignored by the Catholic church, reporting that led to Cardinal Bernard Law’s resignation and won the newspaper a Pulitzer Prize.
Before the film’s release, Saviano recalled, he got dismissed as a crank or conspiracy theorist.
“I guess they did think I was a little bit of a kook,” he said.
On Thursday night, Saviano will attend a Raleigh screening of “Spotlight,” speak briefly and then lead a round table discussion on Friday morning. Since the film’s release, he said, attention is easier to come by.
“A lot of people,” Saviano said, “including members of my own family, now they get it. I think they take me a lot more seriously then they did.”
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