Set in the early 2000's, Spotlight follows a team of investigative journalists working for the Boston Globe as they look into claims that a local Cardinal knew that a priest was committing child molestation and did nothing to stop it. Spurred on by the newspapers new editor, the team soon find out that the problem is much bigger than they initially suspected, and before long they are looking for hard evidence that many cases of abuse have been covered up by the Catholic Church, which has then simply reassigned abusive priests to other parishes where they can continue to abuse children.