The Star’s reality check on Spotlight

Our reporter tests movie’s depiction of journalists fighting to uncover the truth

I have had the privilege of working on several stories that have landed on the front page of the Toronto Star and prompted change.

These stories take time and resources, and often require the help of colleagues who spend months plodding door to door and digging through documents and spreadsheets.

The movie Spotlight, which premiered at TIFF this week, promised to be about these very things. Did the Boston Globe reporters portrayed onscreen break the story the way reporters do at the Star? I watched the movie to find out. The story takes root Movie: In Spotlight, a top editor at the Boston Globe notices a story about a church official’s abuse of power then tasks the investigations team to probe the extent of the church’s wrongdoing. Reality: This is exactly what happened a few years ago leading up to the Star’s Police Who Lie series: an editor noticed a small story on a cop caught lying in court. Months later, the Star produced a package of stories about scores of officers caught lying in court but going unpunished. How the story gets done Movie: In Spotlight, there is no midnight drop of a manila envelope stuffed with official documents, no top insider who suffers a crisis of conscience and goes on record. Reality: This is fairly accurate. The reporters onscreen — as is often the case for the Star’s investigations team — go to court to win access to key documents. They scan old newspaper articles for clues and to background-check names. We pore over stacks of paper. Then we meet with lawyers and other advocates who can lead the way to victims. Deadline nears Movie: In Spotlight, reporter Mi- chael Rezendes (played by Mark Ruffalo) becomes convinced that a rival newspaper may publish its own story.

Impassioned, he pleads with the investigations editor, Walter (Robby) Robinson (Michael Keaton), to rush to print. Reality: I, too, have felt this way on a few occasions. In Spotlight, Robinson advises patience and urges thorough reporting. My editor Kevin Donovan responds in a similar way. He says: “You can’t steal an elephant.” This would never happen Movie: In one of Spotlight’s most tense moments, Rezendes hurries to court to pick up key documents but is told by the court clerk that they are sealed. Reality: At the Star, our next recourse would be to petition the court to unseal the documents, a costly process that would likely take months and may not succeed.

This is why any Star reporter would chuckle in disbelief at what happens next in the film: Rezendes goes to the judges’ offices, waits for one to walk by, gets a sit-down meeting and persuades the judge to unseal the documents. The courts in Boston may bestow this kind of mercy on journalists, but I can tell you they do not in Canada. At least not to this envious reporter.