How revealing the Church's cover-up of child sex abuse by priests changed Boston forever
On January 6, 2002, the Boston Globe published an explosive story about widespread sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests in the Boston archdiocese. It started as an investigation into a number of allegations of abuse committed by Father John Geoghan. It became a report about dozens of priests abusing children … and a cover-up by the hierarchy of the archdiocese, which quietly shunted the offending priests out of service or shuffled them off to other parishes.
After a year and a half of the Globe's reporting, 250 priests stood accused of sexually abusing children over the course of 50 years. It stands as a landmark of investigative reporting and won the Pulitzer Prize.
The story of the Boston Globe's investigation is the subject of Spotlight, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2016.
It's very much about the work of journalists, and considering how much investigative journalism is unglamorous, painstaking tedium - knocking on doors, making cold calls, chasing false leads, poring over file after file of archives and records. It is unlikely material for a suspenseful thriller.But in the tradition of All The President's Men, the Globe's journalists are depicted as gutsy defenders of the public interest, using their wits and courage to expose wrongdoing. You could be excused for pumping your fist at the film's climax.
The film could also be read as sort of a requiem for print journalism in the current bleak environment for the newspaper business.
Walter Robinson was the leader of the Boston Globe's investigative unit called Spotlight - the team that broke the story. Although he may be somewhat better known as "the guy Michael Keaton plays in the film."
From 2007-2014, Robinson was the Distinguished Professor of Journalism at Northeastern University, and now he's back at the Globe as editor-at-large.