Michael Rezendes is an American journalist and a member of the global investigative team at

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

. He is the recipient of a

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

for his investigative work for ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

''. Since joining the ''Globe'' he has 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.

Personal life and education

Rezendes is of Portuguese descent, born in

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...

. He graduated from

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

with a BA in English and with an MFA from

American Film Institute The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees. Leade ...

.The Globe Investigative Team, Michael Rezendes
The Boston Globe. In 2008 and 2009, he was the recipient of a John S. Knight journalism fellowship at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Career

Before arriving at ''

'', Rezendes was a staff writer at ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', and a government and politics reporter for the ''

San Jose Mercury News ''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidiar ...

'' and the ''

Boston Phoenix ''The Phoenix'' (stylized as ''The Phœnix'') was the name of several alternative weekly periodicals published in the United States of America by Phoenix Media/Communications Group of Boston, Massachusetts, including the ''Portland Phoenix'' and ...

''. He was also a contributing writer at ''

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

'' magazine and the editor of the ''East Boston Community News''. He joined ''The Boston Globe'' in 1989, and moved to ''Associated Press'' in the Spring of 2019.

Catholic church scandal

For more than a decade Rezendes was a member of the ''Globe'''s Spotlight Team. He was a member of the group of reporters whose work in exposing the Roman Catholic church's cover-up of clergy sex abuse earned ''The Boston Globe'' the

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

Pulitzer Prize for Public Service The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. It recognizes a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper or news site through the use of its journalis ...

. For his reporting and writing on the Church, he also shared the George Polk Award for National Reporting, the

Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting The Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting is an award for journalists administered by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. The program was launched in 1991, with the goal of exposing examples of ...

, the

Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting The Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, given by the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectar ...

, and numerous other honors. Rezendes's reporting revealed that top Catholic officials had veiled the abuses committed by the Rev.

John Geoghan John Joseph "Jack" Geoghan (; June4, 1935August23, 2003) was an American serial child rapist and Roman Catholic priest assigned to parishes in the Archdiocese of Boston in Massachusetts. He was reassigned to several parish posts involving intera ...

, a Boston priest who molested more than 100 children in six parishes over three decades. In addition, Rezendes broke the stories about similar cover-ups by Church officials in New York City and Tucson, Arizona.

Further investigations as Spotlight member

Rezendes and the Spotlight Team were also Pulitzer Prize finalists for a series of stories that uncovered abuses in the

debt collection Debt collection is the process of pursuing payments of debts owed by individuals or businesses. An organization that specializes in debt collection is known as a collection agency or debt collector. Most collection agencies operate as agents of ...

industry. "Debtors Hell" won the Public Service Award from the

Society of Professional Journalists The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), formerly known as Sigma Delta Chi, is the oldest organization representing journalists in the United States. It was established on April 17, 1909, at DePauw University,2009 SPJ Annual Report, letter ...

and was a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize. As a Spotlight Team member, Rezendes played a key role in many of the ''Globe'''s most significant investigations, including those probing the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

on the

World Trade Center World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may refer to: Buildings * List of World Trade Centers * World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...

and

the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...

, 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.

LDS Church scandal

On August 4th, 2022, Rezendes published "Seven years of sex abuse: How Mormon officials let it happen" which described how

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...

(LDS Church) had handled certain sexual abuse allegations received through their help line. The article revealed a number of instances where LDS Church knew about sexual abuse and 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. 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. However, the church's official statement did not dispute any facts in Rezendes' story.

Books

He is a co-author of ''Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church'', and a contributing author to ''Sin Against the Innocents: Sexual Abuse by Priests and the Role of the Catholic Church''.

In popular culture

In the 2015 film ''

Spotlight Spotlight or spot light may refer to: Lighting * Spot lights, automotive auxiliary lamps * Spotlight (theatre lighting) * Spotlight, a searchlight * Stage lighting instrument, stage lighting instruments, of several types Art, entertainment, an ...

'', he was portrayed by

Mark Ruffalo Mark Alan Ruffalo (; born November 22, 1967) is an American actor and producer best known for playing Bruce Banner / Hulk since 2012 in the superhero franchise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and in the television series '' She-Hulk: Attorne ...

, who was nominated for an

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given in honor of an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a supporting role while worki ...

for his performance.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rezendes, Michael American investigative journalists The Boston Globe people Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Boston University College of Arts and Sciences alumni American people of Portuguese descent The Mercury News people