This movie was great albeit, very stressful. I can’t imagine being in this situation. The data they dug up were old archives of previously done stories, one being the Porter case and the Geoghan case. They went through settlement cases and through public files through the library to find “clips” about priests who were said to have sexually assaulted children. Reaching out to victims was a huge part of the case as they interviewed and called many of those who dealt with the abuse from priests. I thought it was so cool when they were on the phone thinking 13 priests was too high of a number and the guy was like, ya no, its 90. When they worked backward using the method of looking at priests who were on “sick leave” or reassigned and then they got their data to be 87, which was basically right up there with the guy’s estimate, that was just so cool. They used lots of spreadsheets to organize their data. (I have to say, all those files just all over everyone’s desks freaked me out haha). They made sure they fact-checked their data and went out and looked for those they listed as sexual predators and went knocking on their doors. (Which by the way, that one crazy priest with Alzheimer’s or whatever he had!! I freaked when he was just casually like, “oh ya, I molested them, but I didn’t get pleasure out of it.” Unbelievable. I wonder what that felt like to be Rachel McAdams character.) The editors made sure the story was focused and they made sure deadlines were established and the story was moving along in the way it was supposed to, and definitely coming out at the right time with all the information. It was surprising to find out 9/11 was so close to this investigation, but made it all stop since of course newspapers were going to talk about that before anything else. It was so sad to know that Michael Keaton’s character had the stories from that Porter case and never did “folo” , follow up with it, burying the story… Like all the priests and lawyers did with the truth. Overall, this whole story was so well done and it is so amazing that they found what they found. A story that rocked the world and uncovered so many lies and disgusting behavior happening in churches no less. Amazing movie!
October 13, 2016 at 10:40 pm
Glad you enjoyed Spotlight and even gladder that you nailed the “data” the reporters used to tell the story.