Spotlight on 'Spotlight': Matt Carroll talks future of investigative journalism, Academy Award-winning movie

<p>Matt Carroll was the&nbsp;database reporting specialist for The Boston Globe investigative team Spotlight, which won a&nbsp;Pulitzer Prize for uncovering widespread child sex abuse within the Catholic Church.&nbsp;</p>

Matt Carroll was the database reporting specialist for The Boston Globe investigative team Spotlight, which won a Pulitzer Prize for uncovering widespread child sex abuse within the Catholic Church. 

The real-life investigative reporter in "Spotlight" offered an inside look into the Academy Award-winning movie and the story behind it Wednesday night.

Matt Carroll—former database reporting specialist for The Boston Globe investigative team called Spotlight and self-professed “data geek”—discussed the team’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation that uncovered pervasive child sex abuse within the Boston Catholic Church and "Spotlight," the 2015 film made about it. Sponsored by the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy, the event was held in the Sanford School of Public Policy for an audience of about 40 people.

“This whole movie thing was a total whirlwind,” Carroll said. “I was talking to my wife about it, and she said the Pulitzer was a big deal for a weekend. This was a big deal for months.”

The Boston Globe published about 600 stories related to the sexual abuse scandal throughout 2002. Carroll spoke of the drastic effects the articles had on the Boston community just two or three days after the first article was released.

“It really changed the dynamic between thousands of Catholics in Boston and the Church,” he said. “Some ties were irreparably broken. Donations just fell off a cliff.”

The Spotlight team ran its first story on the scandal—in which the Catholic archdiocese in Boston was found to have covered up more than 100 cases of sexual abuse of minors by priests—in January 2002, just as the Internet was putting an end to "the golden age of investigative journalism."

“It became one of the internet’s first viral investigative stories,” he said. “The news industry could still afford to do really long term investigations.”

Carroll talked about how the makeup of Spotlight team evolved during the investigation, expanding from four to 10 people and resulting in estimated expenses of about $1 million for the paper.

“You have to wonder today would The Boston Globe be able to handle adding $1 million to get a story out? And I don’t know,” he said. “Things have changed pretty dramatically since then. Back then, they didn’t blink. They were making a lot of money.”

During his talk, Carroll discussed the future of investigative journalism. Since 2002, newspaper revenue has declined sharply, in large part due to the rise of the Internet, he noted.

Newspapers around the country made “huge layoffs,” often up to 50 percent of the newsroom to counteract the revenue loss, and investigative journalism has suffered as a result, Carroll said.

To combat the failing advertising revenues, alternative sources of revenues are necessary, Carroll said. He mentioned the Texas Tribune hosting journalism conferences and ProPublica selling data.

However, he recounted how the movie "Spotlight" provided a lift for many of his peers, at a time when the journalism industry was facing massive cuts. 

“It was a bad time for journalism with so many people getting laid off, so it was really a shot in arm for a lot of journalists,” Carroll said.

Following his formal presentation, Carroll answered questions from the audience, many of which concerned the accuracy of the film.

He noted that the film fairly represented both the investigation of the story and the everyday journalism process. During the development phase, director Tom McCarthy and screenwriter Josh Singer consistently sent the script back and forth to the real Spotlight team to ensure its accuracy.

Carroll said that his “head imploded” the first time he saw the film because of how surreal the depictions were.

“I look a lot better on the screen that I do in real life,” he said.

Carroll praised McCarthy and Singer for their dedication and how they included even the smallest details for the sake of authenticity.

“For news people who see this, it rings so true,” Carroll said. “It feels like you’re in the newsroom, it feels like ‘yeah, I’ve been in these discussions, I know exactly what these people are going through, this is the kind of newsroom I work in.’”

Discussion

Share and discuss “Spotlight on 'Spotlight': Matt Carroll talks future of investigative journalism, Academy Award-winning movie” on social media.