Michael Rezendes
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Michael Rezendes is an American journalist who shared a
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
and other awards for his investigative work at ''
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...
''. He is currently a member of the global investigative team at The Associated Press.


Personal life and education

Rezendes is of Portuguese descent, born in
Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...
. He graduated from
Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...
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 History of cinema in the United States, motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private fu ...
.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 Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
.


Career

Before arriving at ''
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...
'', Rezendes was a staff writer at ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'', 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 subsidia ...
'' and the ''
Boston Phoenix ''The Phoenix'' (stylized as ''The Phœnix'') was the name of several alternative weekly periodicals published in the United States by Phoenix Media/Communications Group of Boston, Massachusetts, including the now defunct ''Boston Phoenix'', '' ...
''. He was also a contributing writer at ''
Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
'' magazine and the editor of the ''East Boston Community News''. He joined ''The Boston Globe'' in 1989, 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.


Catholic church scandal

For more than a decade, Rezendes was a member of the ''Boston Globe'''s Spotlight Team, a group of investigative reporters whose work in exposing various Catholic Church sex abuse cases won the newspaper the
2003 2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater. In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Demographic ...
Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. 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 Selden 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. Rezendes also broke 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 or cash collection is the process of pursuing payments of money or other agreed-upon value owed to a creditor. The debtors may be individuals or businesses. An organization that specializes in debt collection is known as a coll ...
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, lette ...
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, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The building was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As ...
, 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 4, 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 Restorationism, restorationist Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, denomination and the ...
(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. 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.


''Alaska Daily''

From 2022 to 2023, Rezendes worked as a staff writer for 10 episodes in ABC's crime drama '' Alaska Daily''. The show stars Hilary Swank, a journalist who, after fumbling a major story about a U.S. general, leaves New York to work for ''The Daily Alaskan'', a fictional newspaper based on the '' Anchorage Daily News'', in Anchorage, Alaska. The show was inspired by the 2019 ''Anchorage Daily News'' and
ProPublica ProPublica (), legally Pro Publica, Inc., is a nonprofit investigative journalism organization based in New York City. ProPublica's investigations are conducted by its staff of full-time reporters, and the resulting stories are distributed to ne ...
article series ''Lawless: 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.


Books

He is a co-author (along with Matt Carroll and Sacha Pfeiffer) 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'', he was portrayed by
Mark Ruffalo Mark Alan Ruffalo (; born November 22, 1967) is an American actor. He began acting in the late 1980s and first gained recognition for his work in Kenneth Lonergan's play ''This Is Our Youth'' (1996) and drama film ''You Can Count on Me'' (2000) ...
, 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 has been awarded since the 9th Academy Awards to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in ...
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 The Washington Post journalists Pulitzer Prize for Public Service winners Stanford University Knight Fellows