Shining the spotlight on investigative journalism

Former Boston Globe journalist Matt Carroll on why you can't put a price tag on old school reportage - and why it is the way to go.

Once upon a time, there was a generation of journalists who braved bullets to cover wars, and risked life and limb without a thought for their own safety. They dug deep, hounded sources, analysed data and stalked the corridors of power to get to the truth.
Today, this tribe has been pared down. The size of newsroom real estate has not changed, but there is a discernible lack of bodies filling this space. Hit by financial woes, most media owners have downsized newsrooms and, in the process, abandoned a news tradition that saw its finest hours during the Cold War.
If you've watched Spotlight, the movie that scooped the Oscar for Best Picture this month, you'll have realised that those news organisations that investigate issues that resonate with readers "will be the ones who will do the best in the long term. And this," says the warm, voluble Matt Carroll (one of the journalists portrayed in Spotlight by the moustachioed Brian d'Arcy James) "is the central theme of the movie."
Matt was part of the Boston Globe's Spotlight team that, in 2002, painstakingly stitched together a series of well-documented articles that blew the lid off decades of abuse by Catholic priests in Boston and the deliberate cover-ups by their superiors.
The Globe's stories on abusive priests won it the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003 and was the catalyst for helping survivors speak out and get much-needed financial aid from the various lawsuits and settlements with the Catholic Church.
Matt talked to Khaleej Times about piecing together the stories, how the articles led to the making of a movie, what it felt like watching a "stranger" (Brian d'Arcy James) play him in the film, the power of investigative journalism in bringing about systemic change, and how the articles and the movie helped another generation of abuse victims find their voice and get much-needed help.
Excerpts:
Has the media's role been imperilled since the Internet became a viable news source?
MATT: News has not been imperilled. It's the revenue streams. Financial woes have hit newsrooms pretty hard leading to fewer reporters trying to fill bigger news holes. An investigative story takes a lot of resources that few newspapers can afford, especially today, when you can just tweet a story and reach a far wider audience. Yes, print media is definitely on the way out.
Why has investigative reporting taken such a huge beating?
I think it all boils down to the bottom line: revenue, the beating heart of any business. Editors today are less inclined to put anyone on investigative reporting because it's a luxury they can't afford. On the other hand, investigative reporting is incredibly important and I think that's really the way to go. It's not something you can put a price tag on. It's what will make you stand out as a brand.
Four decades ago, All the President's Men was the shining example of investigative journalism. Is Spotlight the example for today's millennials?
Mentioning Spotlight in the same breath as All the President's Men is very humbling. But they are different stories. All The President's Men was all about getting a President [Richard Nixon] out of office. Ours was about abusive priests and exposing the systemic cover-ups.
I feel humbled to be part of the movie and for getting the kind of response I did from fellow journalists and the people I worked with and respected so much. It's very gratifying.
What has been your experience watching the film?
It was surreal watching myself and some of my colleagues on screen. I remember when I walked out of the theatre, I told my wife that it felt really odd.
The Globe team watched it at the Toronto Film Festival and, at the end of it, we got a seven minute standing ovation from the 2,000-strong crowd. It was an incredible, wonderful, humbling and gratifying experience.
And then to win the Oscar was pretty crazy; I was close to crying. It was wonderful because it shows the power of investigative journalism.
How did it feel to see yourself being played on the screen?
I can't even begin to describe it. It was pretty damn weird. And Brian d'Arcy James did a wonderful job of playing me. The killer is that Brian plays a better me on screen than I am in real life. Plus, he sports a cooler moustache than mine (he hated it and couldn't wait to shave it off!).
There's a scene that shows Brian building a spreadsheet of suspect priests. How tedious was it really?
There's no doubt that building the spreadsheet of all the priests who'd been involved in abusing children was very tedious. It was Walter 'Robby' Robinson (played by Michael Keaton), a charming guy and a great raconteur, who came up with the spreadsheet idea. We spent a couple of months building it. It was sheer drudgery. But, in the end, it was worthwhile. The scene is fantastic. Brian later said: until I met you, I thought a spreadsheet was something you bought at Bed Bath & Beyond!
How did the movie come about?
Someone at the Columbia School of Journalism wrote about us and our story, and later approached a couple of Hollywood producers and suggested that it would make a great movie. After that, there were a lot of twists and turns till, in 2007, two young producers, Nicole Rocklin and Blye Pagon Faust, approached us about doing a movie about our work. It took some time to get traction, but work finally started when they roped in director Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer, who co-wrote the script with Tom.
What did you think of Tom and Josh's script and direction ?
We were over the moon with the script and direction. The writing is marvellous; the script is nuanced; the attention to detail just amazing. Tom and Josh succeeded in capturing the newsroom ambience, the tensions, excitement and the small victories as well as the personalities. They went through every minute detail and spent hours interviewing us to ensure they got everything right. That they could then crunch five months of work into two hours and eight minutes was incredible. But they did, and did it well.
Did you get to watch the movie being shot?
I did watch part of the movie being shot. The exterior scenes were filmed in Boston, my neighbourhood, and the Globe office was recreated at a studio in Toronto.
How many reporters worked on the story?
We were four of us when we started but went up to 10. We ended up writing 600 stories that year.
What was it like when you interviewed priests and survivors?
It was emotionally gruelling for us and for them too. We met hundreds of victims and after hearing their horrific stories, I had reached a point when I was telling myself I didn't want to talk about it anymore. I was sick of it and I think we were burning out too.
Any regrets?
Just one. Not putting all the documents we had collected online. We had tens of thousands of pages, but we posted only a selection. That was partly because of the lack of technology (there were no high speed scanners) and partly because of my own lack of foresight.
(Matt Carroll who worked at the Boston Globe for 26 years, mostly as a database reporter, left the paper in 2013. He now runs the Future of News initiative at the MIT Media Lab.)

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INTERVIEW