Michael Rezendes | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Michael Rezendes holding steno pad and wearing sunglasses | |
| Alma mater | Boston University (BA) American Film Institute (MFA) |
| Employer | The Associated Press |
| Known for | Exposing thecoverage of the Roman Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandal |
| Awards | •Pulitzer Prize •George Polk Award for National Reporting •Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting •Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting |
Michael Rezendes is an American journalist who shared aPulitzer Prize and other awards for his investigative work atThe Boston Globe. He is currently a member of the global investigative team atThe Associated Press.
Rezendes is of Portuguese descent, born inMaine.[1] He graduated fromBoston University with a BA in English and with anMFA fromAmerican Film Institute.[2][3] In 2008 and 2009, he was the recipient of aJohn S. Knight journalism fellowship atStanford University.
Before arriving atThe Boston Globe, Rezendes was a staff writer atThe Washington Post, and a government and politics reporter for theSan Jose Mercury News and theBoston Phoenix. He was also a contributing writer atBoston magazine and the editor of theEast Boston Community News.
He joinedThe Boston Globe in 1989,[3] where he covered presidential, state and local politics, and was a weekly essayist, roving national correspondent, city hall bureau chief, and the deputy editor for national news. He moved to The Associated Press in the spring of 2019.[4]
For more than a decade, Rezendes was a member of theBoston Globe's Spotlight Team, a group of investigative reporters whose work in exposing variousCatholic Church sex abuse cases won the newspaper the2003Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.[5] For his reporting and writing on the Church, he also shared theGeorge Polk Award for National Reporting, theGoldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, theSelden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, and numerous other honors.
Rezendes's reporting revealed that top Catholic officials covered up the abuses committed by the Rev.John Geoghan, a Boston priest who molested more than 100 children at six parishes over three decades.[5] Rezendes also broke stories about similar cover-ups by Church officials in New York City and Tucson, Arizona.[6][7][8]
Rezendes and the Spotlight Team were also Pulitzer Prize finalists for a series of stories that uncovered abuses in thedebt collection industry. "Debtors Hell" won the Public Service Award from theSociety of Professional Journalists and was a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize.
As a Spotlight Team member, Rezendes played a key role in many of theGlobe's most significant investigations, including those probing theSeptember 11 attacks on theWorld Trade Center andthe Pentagon, financial corruption in the nation's charitable foundations, and the plight of mentally ill state prisoners. He was also on a team of reporters that won a first-place award from the Education Writers Association for a special section on school desegregation.
On August 4, 2022, Rezendes published "Seven years of sex abuse: How Mormon officials let it happen," which described howthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) had handled certain sexual abuse allegations received through their help line. The article revealed a number of instances in which LDS Church knew about sexual abuse but did not report it to civil authorities because such communication was claimed by the Church to have been given under clergy privilege under state law.[9] There have been criticisms of Rezendes' article from the LDS Church and church members, including allegations of misrepresentation of evidence found in court cases relied upon in the article.[10] However, the church's official statement did not dispute any facts in Rezendes' story.[11]
From 2022 to 2023, Rezendes worked as a staff writer for 10 episodes inABC's crime dramaAlaska Daily.[12][13] The show stars Hilary Swank, a journalist who, after fumbling a major story about a U.S. general, leaves New York to work forThe Daily Alaskan, a fictional newspaper based on theAnchorage Daily News, in Anchorage, Alaska. The show was inspired by the 2019Anchorage Daily News andProPublica article seriesLawless: Sexual Violence in Alaska, as well as subsequent related reporting by the project's lead reporter Kyle Hopkins. In May 2023, ABC cancelled the series after one season.
He is a co-author (along with Matt Carroll andSacha Pfeiffer) ofBetrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church, and a contributing author toSin Against the Innocents: Sexual Abuse by Priests and the Role of the Catholic Church.
In the 2015 filmSpotlight, he was portrayed byMark Ruffalo, who was nominated for anAcademy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.