In 2001, The Boston Globe newspaper assigned a team of investigative journalists to look into allegations against an ex-priest accused of molesting more than 80 boys.
As they interviewed victims and gained access to documents, the reporters uncovered that sexual abuse by priests was a systemic problem. It became their mission to prove that the decades-long cover-up of priests’ criminal behavior could be traced to the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church. It is often considered the biggest scandal uncovered by reporters since Watergate.
The story of how The Boston Globe’s investigative team unraveled the priest abuse story was written for the first time by screenwriter Josh Singer and director Tom McCarthy for the film “Spotlight.” The co-writers are nominated for the Academy Award for best original screenplay, and have already won best original screenplay awards from both the Golden Globes and Writer’s Guild.
On Thursday, Feb. 11, Singer attended a Malibu Film Society screening of “Spotlight” and answered questions from the audience during a Q&A.
Singer told The Malibu Times that when he and McCarthy began piecing together the information for “Spotlight,” the people involved with the story were very cooperative, which was good for them because without that cooperation, they would not have been able to write the scripts.
“The reporters gave us hours upon hours of time, going through the script line by line; and all of them were on set at some time or another, as well as some of the survivors [of priest abuse],” Singer said.
Although the filmmakers never contacted the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston directly, Singer said they did reach out to consultants who had advised the archdiocese and Cardinal Bernard Law during that time.
“We already had all the evidence we needed from the church,” Singer explained. “Some of the script’s conversations were taken verbatim from articles written in the Globe in 2002 … we were much more interested in the evil around the church than the evil of the church. It was the people around the church that enabled [the scandal].”
The first real-life reporter Singer met with was Mike Rezendes, played in the movie by Mark Ruffalo.
“I took him to lunch every day for a week and got him talking to my recorder,” Singer explained. “He was tightly wound, incredibly passionate about what he does and very much a bulldog — exactly the kind of guy you’d want to put on something this challenging. I learned that often reporting is just hanging around and sticking with someone until ‘they empty their pockets.’”
Singer’s education in investigative journalism first began while he was working on a screenplay for “The Fifth Estate” (2013), which is about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
“In 2006, Assange noticed that newspapers were going out of business and reporters were losing their jobs, and wondered who would be holding the powerful accountable. That’s when he started WikiLeaks,” Singer explained. “The Los Angeles Times used to have 19 people covering the state legislature, and now it’s four. So what do you think happens? The politicians know they can get away with murder. We need more local investigative journalists.”
Singer thought “Spotlight” presented an opportunity to “show great local journalism” and start a national conversation about “how much of this we’ve lost.”
“I’m thrilled that all through the fall, there were a ton of articles talking about what’s happened to journalism over the past 15 years,” Singer shared.
“The Fifth Estate” was an adapted screenplay while “Spotlight” was an original screenplay. Comparing the two writing experiences, Singer said, “When you have books to work from, you’re a little bit hemmed in, and perhaps you don’t question the narrative as much, whereas with an original screenplay, you’re honing in on the story yourself. There’s a difference between buying a suit off-the-rack versus one made-to-order. The off-the-rack suit is never going to be as good.”
“We’re certainly hoping ‘Spotlight’ starts a universal conversation,” Singer said. “Whether it’s the church, Jerry Sandusky (Penn State scandal) or Flint, Michigan, this is something we cannot look away from.”
The film and The Boston Globe’s reporting has not had as much effect on church policy as Singer may have hoped.
“The Guardian just announced yesterday that in the Vatican’s new rules to the bishops, they’re told they don’t necessarily have to report priest abuse to the authorities,” he said. “So, 15 years after Boston, it tells me there’s something wrong. That’s the sort of thing we have to fight with the church and other institutions.”
