The path to truth telling in this movie is, for lack of a better word, a long one. The reporters for the Boston Globe overcame many obstacles throughout the entire reporting process to uncover the truth about the hiding of sexual abuse cases made by priests within the Roman Catholic Church.
At the beginning of the movie, Marty Baron (played Liev Schreiber), comes to the Globe and informs the reporters and publishers of the story. Many are hesitant because it involved the church, and the people within the church make up a lot the newspapers audience. Marty simply states that he just wants to get the lawsuit papers for evidence not sue the churches. He describes this as, “We are just filing a motion.” However, as the movie plays out, it becomes much more than just filing a motion.
Slowly but surely, other journalists get on board with the idea; these journalists are Walter Robinson (Michael Keaton), Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Matt Carroll (Brian James), and Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams).
The journalists immediately run into problems with even getting the names of victims and getting the previous lawyers involved to talk. “Don’t want you recording this in anyway, shape, or form. In fact, I shouldn’t be speaking to you,” said Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci). Mitchell was the attorney who represented the victims and who the church wanted disbarred. Another initial problem is the fact that the newspaper might not have the resources to put this story out or the time.
Eventually, the journalists were able to find two names of victims and interviewed them. The interviews provided good information, but there was no evidence to support what the victims were saying. Again, the journalists look to the lawyers to help them get their hands on solid evidence. One of the lawyers failed to tell the journalists that he was another attorney that represented the victims; this was Eric MacLeish (Billy Crudup). When Sacha and Walter asked Eric why there were no public records, he simply said, “We dealt with the church directly.” Eric basically told the journalists that nothing was ever filed with the court.
As the journalists keep digging, the come across more and more names of victims and eventually find out that this scandal could involve over ninety priests in the Boston area. When Walter asks Jim Sullivan (Jamey Sheridan), the attorney representing the church, if this number could be possible, he responds, “You gotta stop this, Robby.” Clearly this statement arouses the journalists into thinking that there are that many priests involved and Walter give Jim one last chance to give him the names of priests and victims. Jim feels threatened and reminds Walter that he did in fact send the names nearly twenty years ago when the case was first being looked at. The Globe, at the time, buried those names and never went on to produce a story. This showed that sometimes journalists miss their opportunities to release a great story as soon as it happens.
Sacha was finally able to find one of the accused priests and ask him what happened all those years ago. The priest was Father Paquin and he openly admitted to molesting boys, “Yes, yes, but as I said, I never got any pleasure from it. That’s important to understand.” Sacha was caught off guard that he didn’t try denying the horrible crime at all.
During this time, the Globe is in court with the motion to make the documents public. However, Michael learns that the documents are public after a motion from Mitchell, but the church had them removed from circulation. Michael now learns that he can, in fact, find get a hold of the documents he needs, “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.”
Refiling the documents would mean that the Globe has all the access to what they need to produce this story. With that being said, now every competing media source would have access; this creates the problem of competition after the journalists from the Globe worked so hard to find information.
It was decided that the Globe would produce a story after the New Year, and that the journalists needed to keep interviewing the victims. The journalists still needed confirmation of the crimes from inside the courtroom without actually refiling the documents yet. Walter makes a final decision that he will try and talk to Jim again.
Jim is shocked that Walter came into his own house to ask about this case. He fights back, “Don’t tell me what I gotta do! Yeah, I helped defend these scumbags, but that’s my job, Robby. I was doing my job!” Walter ends up leaving the house with no luck, but Jim follows him out to his car. Jim ends up circling the names of the priests involved, and it ends up being the entire first page that Walter had brought.
They finally have evidence from inside the courtroom!
The Boston Globe releases the story, and soon after, have multiple calls from more and more victims. They did it.
This movie was a rollercoaster of finding the truth. Sometimes journalists miss opportunities, like not releasing the story when the situation was happening. Nevertheless, the journalists worked their butts off to find all the information needed and didn’t stop when things to a wrong turn. This movie showed me that journalists can find the truth by being persistent.
Journalism & Law 