Spotlight

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The film begins with a brief prologue in 1976. At aBoston Policestation, two policemen, a rookie and a veteran officer discuss the arrest of aCatholic Priestfor molestation of children and the presence of ahigh ranking clerictalking to the mother of the children. TheAssistant District Attorneythen enters the precinct and tells the cops not to let the press get wind of what happened. When the rookie remarks how it will be difficult to keep the press away during thearraignment, the veteran scoffs and sarcastically asks "what arraignment?"

In 2001,The Boston Globehires a new editor,Marty Baron. Baron meets華特 "Robby" 羅賓森, the editor of the Spotlight team, a small group of journalists writinginvestigative articlesthat take months to research and publish. After Baron reads aGlobecolumn about a lawyer, 米契爾 Garabedian, who says thatCardinal Bernard Law(theArchbishop of Boston) knew that the priestJohn Geoghanwassexually abusing childrenand did nothing to stop him, he urges the Spotlight team to investigate. JournalistMichael Rezendescontacts Garabedian, who initially declines to be interviewed. Though he is told not to, Rezendes reveals that he is on the Spotlight team, persuading Garabedian to talk.

Initially believing that they are following the story of one priest who was moved around several times, the Spotlight team begin to uncover a pattern of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests in Massachusetts, and an ongoing cover-up by theBoston Archdiocese. Through Phil Saviano, who heads the victims' rights groupSurvivors Network of those Abused by Priests(SNAP), they widen their search to 13 priests. They learn throughRichard Sipe, a former priest who worked at trying to rehabilitatepedophilepriests, that statistically there should be approximately 90 abusive priests in Boston (six percent of priests). Through their research, they develop a list of 87 names, and begin to find their victims to back up their suspicions. When theSeptember 11 attacksoccur, the team is forced to deprioritize the story. They regain momentum when Rezendes learns from Garabedian that there are publicly available documents that confirm Cardinal Law was made aware of the problem and ignored it. Although Rezendes argues vociferously to run the story immediately before more victims suffer and rival newspapers publish, 羅賓森 remains steadfast to research further so that the systemic problem can be more fully exposed. AfterThe Boston Globewins a case to have even more legal documents unsealed that provide the evidence of that larger picture, the Spotlight team finally begins to write the story, and plan to publish their findings in early 2002.

As they are about to go to print, 羅賓森 confesses to the team that he was sent a list of 20 pedophile priests by lawyer 艾瑞克 MacLeish in 1993 that he never followed up on, but Baron still commends him and his team's efforts to expose the crimes now. The story goes to print with a web link to the documents that expose Cardinal Law's inaction, and a phone number for victims of pedophile priests. The following morning, the Spotlight team is inundated with phone calls from victims coming forward to tell their stories. The film closes with a list of places in the United States and around the world where major scandals involving abuse by priests took place. It also states that Cardinal Law resigned, and was eventually promoted to theBasilica di Santa Maria MaggioreinRome, one of the biggest churches in the world.