The Boston Globe Spotlight Team

Overview

The Spotlight Team is The Boston Globe's investigative journalism unit, described as the oldest continuously operating newspaper investigative unit in the United States. It is best known for its 2002 investigation into the systemic cover-up of clergy sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Boston, which won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and was dramatized in the 2015 Academy Award-winning film Spotlight.

History

Globe editor-in-chief Thomas Winship announced the creation of the Spotlight Team on September 27, 1970, tasked with in-depth reporting beyond daily newsroom capacity; its first investigation, led by editor Timothy Leland and reporters Gerard O'Neill and Stephen A. Kurkjian, exposed corruption at a West End parking lot. The team won its first Pulitzer Prize on May 1, 1972, for exposing corruption in Somerville. O'Neill later led the team as editor for more than 25 years until his death in August 2019. The team's 2001-02 investigation into the Boston Archdiocese, led by editor Walter Robinson under incoming editor Marty Baron, drew on unsealed church records and interviews with survivors and their families. In June 2021, an offshoot unit called the Quick Strike Team, led by editor Brendan McCarthy, won an investigative reporting Pulitzer for "Blind Spot," on states' failure to share information about dangerous drivers; McCarthy has since become editor of the main Spotlight Team. The Globe itself was founded in 1872 and has won 27 Pulitzer Prizes in total.

Key personnel

Editor, Spotlight Team: Brendan McCarthy
Editor, The Boston Globe: Brian McGrory

Location and contact info

Address
Boston, MA
Website
https://www.bostonglobe.com/spotlight-50th-anniversary/