WASHINGTON (DC)
George Washington University – GW Today
April 18, 2016
To Martin Baron, exposing widespread sexual abuse by Catholic priests and the extraordinary lengths the Boston Archdiocese went to cover it up does not make him a hero.
The former editor of the Boston Globe told an audience of GW students he is “allergic” to the notion of heroics. “The word ‘hero’ gets thrown around a lot.”
“We were doing our jobs,” he said. “Truly, this is the work journalists are supposed to do, particularly against powerful institutions. The more powerful the institution, the greater the obligation to pursue wrongdoing when we discover it.”
Mr. Baron, now executive editor of The Washington Post, spoke to School of Media and Public Affairs students Thursday night, along with his former Globe colleague Walter Robinson, after a special screening of “Spotlight” in the Marvin Center Amphitheatre.
The Oscar-winning film was based on the work of the two (played in the film by Liev Schreibner and Michael Keaton, respectively) and their small team of investigative journalists who produced a groundbreaking series of stories in 2002 on the Catholic Church’s systematic concealment of child sexual abuse in Boston.
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