Not many months ago I was among the millions of moviegoers transfixed and inspired by the work of a small team of journalists at The Boston Globe – the Spotlight Team – who in 2002 told the shocking story of pedophile priests whose vile acts were routinely protected by the Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchy. The team’s effort not only won journalism’s highest award, the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal, but also ignited a global attack on such pedophilia.
Theater audiences like mine cheered as the “Spotlight” film credits rolled. I had watched through teary eyes the film’s climactic scene – so familiar to newspaper movies – in which the monstrous presses churn out paper bundles for circulation trucks that fan out across the region delivering the edition containing the story. As a journalist for most of my adult life, my heart swelled with pride. I joined those around me in cheering this demonstration of journalists’ oft-stated mission to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Read Tom Fiedler’s full story here.