Excerpt from Charlie Specht’s duPont-Columbia Award-winning reporting on the Buffalo diocese, Fall From Grace: When Priests Prey and Bishops Betray.
“Almost every whistleblower that I’ve ever talked to - they go to bed and wake up the next morning like, oh, my God, what did I just do? And they call you back in a panic, ‘Am I going to get arrested? Can you give me all the documents back?’” — Charlie Specht, Chief Investigator for WKBW, Buffalo.
WKBW Buffalo investigative reporter Charlie Specht gained the trust of key whistleblowers to break several of the biggest stories about priest sexual abuse and coverup in his hometown last year. In January he won a 2020 duPont Award for the impactful Fall From Grace: When Priests Prey and Bishops Betray. (In February Buffalo’s Bishop resigned and the diocese filed for bankruptcy.) In this episode Specht discusses the central role his sources played and the sensitive approach he used to work with them.
Specht talks with Professor Nina Alvarez about a reporting journey that took many unexpected turns: from covert emails sent anonymously from inside the church, to parking lot meetings, from undercover recordings to Specht’s own conflicted personal ties as a devout Catholic. He discusses the care he took when interviewing victims of sexual abuse and trauma, and the backlash he faced when his reports began airing in Buffalo, a town where the diocese is a powerful institution.
The 2020 duPont-Columbia Award ceremony, at which Specht and WKBW were honored, took place on January 21st! Go to www.duPont.org to watch the full program. Follow Charlie Specht on twitter. Check out our FB page facebook.com/duPontColumbiaAwards.