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Spotlight · written by Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy · 2015
Scene 90 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 from his car across the street toward the courthouse.
Mike rushes to the Suffolk County records room only to find the exhibit folder Garabedian described is empty.
Flipping through a BC High yearbook, Robby finds Father Talbot's faculty photo just as Mike calls with news he won't believe.
This scene
Mike is walking out of the courthouse.
MIKE (INTO PHONE)
Garabedian gave me a tip, some of
the sealed docs are already public.
They’re part of a motion he filed.
He said they’re the best of the
bunch, we don’t have to wait for
Sweeney’s ruling.
INTERCUT THE TWO SCENES
ROBBY (INTO PHONE)
So we can get them?
MIKE (INTO PHONE)
Yeah, but they’re not there! I
already talked to Albano, he said
all we have to do is file a motion
and Sweeney will order Mitch to
refile the docs.
ROBBY (INTO PHONE)
And you think these documents are...
MIKE (INTO PHONE)
He said these 14 docs are all we
need. They’re huge, Robby.
ROBBY
Okay. I’ll call Ben. Good work.