The production companies behind Spotlight, the Oscar contender about a team of Boston Globe journalists who exposed a cover-up of widespread sexual abuse of children by members of the Boston clergy, have established a $100,000 (£65,000) fellowship to promote investigative journalism.
In 2001, the Globe’s Spotlight team published details of a number of priests who had been removed from their posts after allegations of sexual misconduct, only to be placed in new parishes. The scandal developed into a national story as more victims of abuse at the hands of Catholic priests came forward and resulted in a global crisis for the church.
Todd McCarthy’s film of the story, which stars Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams and Brian d’Arcy James as the Spotlight journalists, is being talked up as a potential Oscar best picture winner. The cast picked up a Screen Actors Guild nomination for best ensemble yesterday, while McAdams, who plays Globe reporter Sacha Pfeiffer, is among those nominated for the best supporting actress prize. The film also received three Golden Globe nominations, for best picture (drama), best director and best screenplay.
The Spotlight Investigative Journalism Fellowship, which is open to journalists with a large body of work published in major news outlets, is designed to promote American journalism that has the potential to reveal the abuse of power in the private or public sectors. The money will be awarded by a panel including editors and reporters, as well as Betsy Reed, editor-in-chief of the Intercept, the online portal of First Look Media, which is also a contributor to the fund.
The Globe has been a strong supporter of McCarthy’s film, setting aside a dedicated section of its website to the movie’s production history and running several stories on different aspects of the film’s route to the big screen. The film, released on a limited run on 8 December in the US, has taken just over $17m to date. It is released in the UK on 29 January.
