· · ·
turning to page one
turning to page one
Spotlight · written by Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy · 2015
Scene 108 of 143 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two
The Boston Globe's Spotlight team pries open the Catholic Church's decades-long cover-up of child abuse — one sealed record, one silenced victim at a time.
Robby's Spotlight team operates comfortably inside its own routine, prospecting a modest police-corruption story under a departing editor's cover.
Baron's outsider question exposes what the paper has never done: investigate whether Cardinal Law knowingly protected an abusive priest.
The team sets aside its own project and enters unfamiliar territory: survivor networks, a hostile plaintiff's lawyer, and a legal fight to unseal church records.
The team pays the cost of the work — hearing survivor testimony, chasing MacLeish's stonewalling, and combing church directories for a hidden pattern of reassigned priests.
The directory search and Sipe's estimate deliver what they set out for: confirmation that the abuse spans dozens, then eighty-seven, priests across Boston.
Mike sprints through the courthouse only to find the records room locked for the night.
The next morning, Clerk O'Brian finds Mike waiting outside the locked records room and finally lets him in.
Mike fills out a records request for the Geoghan exhibits, but O'Brian tells him the records are sealed and directs him upstairs to a judge when Mike pushes back that the motion is public.
This scene
Mike walks in. Sees a receptionist.
MIKE
I’d like to see Judge Volterra
please. It’s urgent.
RECEPTIONIST
Judge is in court until 3:30.
MIKE
There’s no other judge on duty?
RECEPTIONIST
Would you like to have a seat?
Her look says it all.
MIKE
Yeah. Sure. I’ll take a seat.
Mike sits. Frustrated and anxious. We PRELAP --
JACK DUNN (PRELAP)
We understand the nature of the
allegations against Father Talbot.