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Tim Leland ’56 Accepts Distinguished Graduate Award IN ASSEMBLY ON OCTOBER 17, 2016, Head of School Bob Henderson, on behalf of the Graduates Association, introduced Tim Leland ’56 as this year’s Distinguished Graduate. “In spring 1969, Leland left Boston with his pregnant wife on a yearlong sabbatical from the Boston Globe,” said Henderson. Leland’s mission during that sabbatical was to study best practices of newspapers abroad and widen his professional horizons. One year later, he returned with his wife and their first child, a baby boy named Sasha (who would graduate from Nobles 18 years later in the Class of 1988). He also returned with the germ of an idea—one that was to greatly enhance the reputation of the Boston Globe and make a significant contribution to American journalism. Leland’s proposal, Henderson said, was to launch a full-time, multimember team of investigative reporters modeled after a unit he’d studied while working at the London Sunday Times. On September 27, 1970, the Spotlight team launched, with Leland as its leader. Two years later, he and the other three members of the Spotlight team were awarded a Pulitzer Prize, journalism’s highest honor, for a series of reports on municipal corruption in Somerville. Spotlight celebrated its 45th anniversary in 2015, making it the longest-running full-time investigative team in the United States. Leland, who also addressed the community on October 17, explained his craft to students. “The news stories you read about in the daily newspaper and see on the nightly news broadcasts are about events that media had nothing to do
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funk. “I wasn’t a very happy student, or a very good one,” he said. He told Nobles students that his new school changed all that. “The opportunities for intellectual, physical and spiritual growth in this wonderful school made me a new person when I graduated in 1956. I owe everything to the TLC I received here in every aspect of life as a student.” Leland is a cum laude graduate of Harvard and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. He began his journalism career at the Boston Herald before being recruited by the Globe as the “ The opportunities for intellectual, paper’s science ediphysical and spiritual growth in tor. In that capacity, he covered the first this wonderful school made me a manned space shots at new person when I graduated." Cape Canaveral, writ—TIM LELAND ’56 ing front-page news accounts of those historic events. Turning to politics, with. The events occur, and journalists he served as the Globe’s State House report facts about them,” he said, giving bureau chief, winning an award from the examples such as the results of a Red Sox American Political Science Association game or a car crash on Route 128. before the sabbatical that led to his work “The event happens, and the media on the Spotlight Team. He later became reacts. . . . But there is another kind of managing editor of the Sunday Globe, journalism—one that is not practiced then managing editor of the daily Globe as much by the media, unfortunately, but is in many ways what a free press is all and, finally, assistant to the publisher about. And that’s investigative journalism. and a vice president of the company. After his retirement in 1998, Leland “The goal of investigative reportfocused on his long-standing service as ers is to uncover facts about things that a board member of the Boys and Girls people know nothing about. [InvestigaClubs of Boston and helped administer tive reporters] make news by uncovera family foundation set up by the late ing activities in the community that are William O. Taylor, publisher of the Globe. either illegal, immoral or irresponsible, He tutors and mentors prison inmates, or a combination of all three.” which he began doing while he was a top Leland also told students that when executive at the Globe. he entered Nobles as a Sixie and was in a