Walter Robinson, former Boston Globe editor who headed team portrayed in film ‘Spotlight,’ to speak at Sept. 14 screening co-sponsored by SPJ, Cronkite School

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The Academy Award-winning 2015 film Spotlight will be shown at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 14, in the First Amendment Forum at the ASU Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Walter V. “Robby” Robinson, the editor who headed the Boston Globe‘s Spotlight investigative team that reported the story of the pedophile priest scandal in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston in the early 2000s, will speak in September at a Phoenix screening of the Oscar-winning film Spotlight, co-sponsored by the Valley of the Sun chapter of SPJ and the Arizona State  University Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Walter Robinson, Boston Globe, Spotlight

Walter V. “Robby” Robinson, former editor of the Boston Globe Spotlight Team, will speak at a screening of the film “Spotlight” in Phoenix Sept. 14.

Robinson, right, portrayed by actor Michael Keaton in the 2015 film — which won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay earlier this year — will give remarks at the screening, at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 14.

The showing will be in the First Amendment Forum on the second floor of the Cronkite School, 555 N. Central Ave., Phoenix. The public is invited. Admission is free.

Officials announced on the Cronkite School website that Robinson has accepted a position at the school as Donald W. Reynolds Visiting Professor, teaching a course in investigative journalism for graduate and advanced undergraduate students. His Spotlight team’s series in the Globe won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2003.

SPJ arranged with the producers of the film to allow its professional chapters one-time licenses to show it locally. The Valley of the Sun (Phoenix) chapter was eager to secure a license for the Phoenix screening. The chapter is grateful to the Cronkite School for the opportunity to show the film on its large screen, which should give a local audience insight into how the Spotlight Team reported what ultimately became a national story.