MASSACHUSETTS
The Connector
Taylor Carito
Connector Editor
As part of the Parker Lecture Series, Michael Rezendes, a member of The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team came to UMass Lowell to speak about his experiences on the infamous case, being played by Mark Ruffalo in a film, and the overall importance of journalism in the modern world.
In 2015, The Boston Globe’s investigative team experienced their claim to fame with the academy award winning film “Spotlight.” Based on the true story, this film highlighted the infamous story the Spotlight Team exposed: the cover up of child molestation by priests in Boston churches.
Rezendes began the lecture by clarifying certain misconceptions about the Pulitzer Prize him and the rest of the team share as a result of this story. The Spotlight team did not discover the actual clergy sexual abuse. There were records that dated back to the 1980s, long before the team had any knowledge about it. The Spotlight Team did not start their research till decades later. “So why did we win the Pulitzer prize? And what makes our work different then everyone else’s work? There were several things that made our work very, very distinctive. The first, and perhaps the most significant, is we discovered the cover up,” says Rezendes.
The second thing that Rezendes mentioned assisted in making the story “bulletproof.” He said that all the information was from the church’s records that were carefully read by the members of the Spotlight Team. This made the articles safe from defamation and ultimately made the story impenetrable. Once the story was completed, Rezendes says the third thing that made the Spotlight story so unique was that it went on the internet because anyone could read the articles and see the documents, and it went viral. “People all over the world read the story,” said Rezendes. This was one of the first really significant journalistic pieces that went viral on the internet.
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