Social Science Research Council

Michael Paulson is The Boston Globe's religion reporter, covering the worlds of faith and spirituality. He was a member of the team of Globe reporters whose reporting on clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2003.

Paulson has been singled out for praise by the Religion Communicators Council, which two years in a row has granted him its Wilbur Award for writing about religion in the secular media. He was granted the 2003 award for coverage of clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, and the 2004 award for coverage of the election of an openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church USA.

Paulson joined the Globe in January 2000 after seven years at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, where he worked as city hall reporter, state house bureau chief in Olympia, and as Washington correspondent in Washington, D.C. Before that he worked as a political reporter for the San Antonio Light in Texas and as a general assignment reporter for the Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Since January 2002, Paulson has spent much of his time writing about the crisis in the Catholic Church, and he co-authored a book, Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church, which was published in hardcover in June 2002 and in paperback in March 2003.

Paulson and his colleagues were honored for their work not only with the Pulitzer Prize, but also with the Associated Press Managing Editors' Freedom of Information Award, the Goldsmith Prize for investigative reporting, the George Polk Award for national reporting, a medal from Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Selden Ring Award for investigative reporting, the Sigma Delta Chi award for excellence in investigative journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Taylor Family Award for fairness in newspapers, the Worth Bingham Award for investigative reporting and The New York Times Company's Punch Sulzberger Award. The team also won a media award from the Massachusetts Association for the Treatment of Sex Abusers and the Spirit Award for Media Responsibility from Jane Doe Inc., a Massachusetts coalition against sexual assault and domestic violence.

Paulson also shared in the American Society of Newspaper Editors' 2004 prize for Deadline News Reporting by a Team, for coverage of a tragic 2003 nightclub fire in West Warwick, Rhode Island.

Paulson is a graduate of Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania. A native of Newton, Massachusetts, he now lives in Brookline.