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Spotlight · written by Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy · 2015
Scene 111 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 asks a receptionist to see Judge Volterra immediately about accessing the sealed exhibits.
At BC High, Robby and Sacha press President Kemeza and spokesman Jack Dunn on whether the school's leadership knew about Father Talbot, and Robby reveals a victim who played hockey under Talbot's own coaching.
Walking back from BC High, Robby tells Sacha that everyone around them, even his own alma mater's PR men, already seems to know the story they're still chasing.
This scene
Mike is still waiting. A JUDGE enters. Mike stands.
MIKE
Judge Volterra?
JUDGE VOLTERRA
Yes?
MIKE
Hi, I’m Mike Rezendes from the
Boston Globe. I’m having some
trouble accessing some public
records down in the records room. I
was wondering if I could have a word
with you?