UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
Brian Roewe | Feb. 29, 2016
“Spotlight,” the film that follows The Boston Globe’s investigation into the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic church, won best picture at the 88th Academy Awards held on Sunday night.
“This film gave a voice to survivors, and this Oscar amplifies that voice, which we hope will become a choir that will resonate all the way to the Vatican,” producer Michael Sugar said in accepting the Oscar.
“Pope Francis, it’s time to protect the children and restore the faith,” he added.
“We would not be here today without the heroic efforts of our reporters,” said Blye Pagon Faust, another “Spotlight” producer. “Not only do they affect global change, but they absolutely show us the necessity for investigative journalism.”
In January 2002, the Globe published its first report from its Spotlight investigative team uncovering the sexual abuse scandal in the Boston archdiocese. The stories that followed helped place the issue of clerical sexual abuse of children on the nation’s conscience and ultimately beyond U.S. borders. The Globe’s reporting added a major metropolitan voice to the work of other smaller publications in uncovering the abuse scandal, including a Boston-area alternative weekly, the Phoenix, and National Catholic Reporter, which published its first story on the abuse crisis in 1985.
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