Thomas Farragher
E-mail: farragher@globe.com; Phone: 617-929-3229
Farragher is the editor of the Globe Spotlight Team. A journalist for 35 years, he began his career as a reporter and editor at two small Massachusetts dailies and later covered politics for The Day newspaper of New London. He was the Washington correspondent for the San Jose Mercury News before joining the Globe. In 1997, Farragher was awarded the National Press Club’s top prize for journalists who display excellence in covering Washington from a regional perspective. He was among a team of Globe reporters who won the 1999 National Headliner Award for spot news coverage of a mass murder at Connecticut’s lottery headquarters. Farragher shared the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for public service for the Globe’s coverage of the clergy sexual abuse crisis.
He is the co-author of “Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church,’’ based on the Globe’s reporting about that scandal. In 2004, Farragher shared the American Society of Newspaper Editors top award for deadline news reporting for coverage of the Rhode Island nightclub fire that killed 100 people in February 2003. In 2009, Farragher and his team won two national awards from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for a series of reports that examined Massachusetts’ spiraling healthcare costs. He and his Spotlight Team colleagues won this year’s George Polk Award and the National Headliner Award’s top prize for public service for a Globe series on an unusually high acquittal rate in drunk driving cases tried before judges instead of juries.
Marcella Bombardieri
E-mail: bombardieri@globe.com; Phone: 617-929-3435
Bombardieri is a reporter with the Globe Spotlight Team. This year, she was part of the team that won a George Polk Award for legal reporting and the first place National Headliner Award for public service for the Spotlight Team’s series about the leniency of Massachusetts judges in drunken driving cases. In 2006, Bombardieri, then the Globe’s higher education reporter, was honored with a first place National Headliner Award in education for her stories, including her reporting on Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers remarks that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers. She covered the 2008 presidential campaign and reported from the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
E-mail: jsaltzman@globe.com; Phone: 617-929-3227
Saltzman is a member of the Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team, which won a George Polk Award and a first place National Headliner Award this year for a series on the startlingly high percentage of motorists acquitted of drunk driving in bench trials. He has worked at the Globe for a decade and, before joining the investigative unit in 2011, covered federal and state courts for the newspaper. He previously worked as a reporter at several newspapers, including the Providence Journal-Bulletin and the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. He also worked at the National Public Radio stations in Boston and Providence.
Scott Allen
E-mail: allen@globe.com; Phone: 617-929-3112
Allen, the editor of the Metro department’s investigative team, has been a journalist for 29 years, the last 20 of them at the Boston Globe.
A former member of the Spotlight Team, he played a prominent role in the 2010 investigation of the hiring scandal at the state Probation Department that led to a massive overhaul of the agency and criminal indictments against three top officials. He was part of the team that won two national awards from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for a series of reports that examined Massachusetts’ spiraling healthcare costs. The Metro investigative team, formed in 2011, exposed the extraordinarily high pay and lax work habits of Chelsea Housing chief Michael E. McLaughlin. Previously, Allen has served as the health and science editor and the lead environmental writer for the Globe. He also has worked for the Patriot Ledger in Quincy and the Maine Times in Maine. He has taught science journalism to graduate students at Boston University and served as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1997-98.
Matt Carroll
E-mail: mcarroll@globe.com; Phone: 617-929-7375
Carroll, the database reporting specialist for the Metro department’s investigative team, has been a reporter for the Globe since 1987. He was a member of the Spotlight Team that won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its series of stories exposing the Catholic Church sexual abuse crisis. He was also part of the team that won the 2012 George Polk Award for Legal Reporting for its series on extraordinary acquittal rates by judges in drunk driving cases. In 1994, Carroll started the Globe’s first internal website, which was used by reporters and editors, and he trains journalists in database management for Investigative Reporters and Editors. Before joining the Spotlight Team in 1997, he covered business and suburban news. He has also worked for the Middlesex News in Massachuestts and the Pawtuxet Valley Daily Times in Rhode Island.
Sean P. Murphy
E-mail: smurphy@globe.com; Phone: 617-929-7849
Murphy, a member of the Metro department’s investigative team, is an attorney who frequently uses state and federal public records law to gain access to government documents. Since joining the Globe in 1987, Murphy has reported on Big Dig mismanagement, Native American-owned casinos, government corruption and police brutality. In 2010, Murphy was named a finalist for the national Goldsmith Award for Investigative Reporting for his coverage of public pension abuses. On the Metro investigative team, Murphy exposed the enormous salary and lax work habits of Chelsea Housing chief Michael E. McLaughlin. Murphy has served on the Spotlight Team and, from 1996 to 1998, he was the Globe’s city editor. In 1999-2000, he attended Stanford University on a John S. Knight journalism fellowship. He currently teaches investigative journalism as an adjunct professor at Suffolk University. Early in his career, Murphy worked for the Gloucester Daily Times.
Michael Rezendes
E-mail: rezendes@globe.com; Phone: 617-929-3047
Rezendes, a member of the Metro department’s investigative team, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who has played a key role in many of the Globe’s most significant investigations, including those probing the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, financial corruption in the nation’s charitable foundations, and the plight of mentally ill state prisoners. As a member of the Spotlight Team, he shared a 2003 Pulitzer Prize for investigating the cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Rezendes was also part of the Spotlight Team that was a Pulitzer finalist for a series of stories on unscrupulous debt collectors. On the Metro investigative team, Rezendes probed the business dealings of John B. Barranco, a Boston educator accused of seizing $10 million in taxpayer money intended for special needs students. He also investigated the role of a prominent Jesuit priest at Boston College, the Rev. Bradley M. Schaeffer, in covering up sexual abuse by a predator priest with ties to Mother Teresa. Rezendes worked for the Washington Post until coming to the Globe in 1989 to cover Boston city hall. Follow him on Twitter @RezGlobe.
E-mail: estes@globe.com; Phone: 617-929-8247
Estes, a member of the Metro department’s investigative team, wrote a series of stories that led to the indictment and conviction of former House Speaker Salvatore F. Dimasi, now serving an eight-year sentence in federal prison for corruption. A former member of the Spotlight Team, Estes helped uncover the vast patronage network in the state Probation Department that so far has led to federal indictments against three top agency officials. She also helped uncover the inflated $360,000 salary paid to Chelsea Housing chief Michael McLaughlin, triggering both state and federal criminal investigations as well as statewide reform of public housing authorities. Before joining the Globe in 2000, Estes worked for the MetroWest Daily News and the Boston Herald. At the Globe, she has covered suburban news, the federal courts, Boston city hall and the statehouse, including Governor Deval Patrick’s first campaign for governor.