Lehigh University graduate Martin Baron returned to the Lehigh Valley Feb. 18, and was welcomed warmly by the Bethlehem and Lehigh community at a packed Baker Auditorium.

Baron, a 1976 graduate, was the editor of the Boston Globe who helped lead the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the cover-up of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. He led a discussion about the investigation, and the role of journalism, following a screening of “Spotlight,” the compelling Oscar-winning film about that investigation.

He has been leading similar discussions elsewhere, but said the crowd at Lehigh was by far the largest for such an event. The impetus for these events is “taking the message of the role of the press to the public,” he said.

“I’m hoping it will help the public to appreciate the role of the press,” he said.

The investigation, as dramatized in “Spotlight,” uncovered dozens of cases in which Catholic clergy were accused of abusing children. But the cases were covered up by simply moving the priests around to different parishes, or sending them to “treatment centers,” and awarding cash settlements to victims in return for their silence. The investigation also disclosed that Cardinal Bernard Law was aware of and implicated in the cover-ups.

The Globe printed more than 900 stories about the issue in the year and a half after the first stories appeared, Baron said. The investigation disclosed that a place that “was supposed to be a refuge, was anything but.”

It also disturbed the many good priests in the Diocese, he reported, a number of whom signed a petition calling for Law’s resignation.

The Globe’s disclosures triggered similar investigations around the country, Baron said, but he added “there are questions to this day about whether the church is taking it seriously enough.”

Law did resign, for example, but was later given a prestigious position in the Vatican.

In the comment period which followed Baron’s discussion of the case with journalism professor Jack Lule, several of Baron’s contemporaries at Lehigh shared their memories of him and asked questions, but the most emotionally charged audience comment came from a man in his 80s who said he was sexually abused by a priest in the 1940s.

It took him many years to share his story with anyone, he said. Even his wife never knew. “Spotlight” was a very hard movie for him to watch, he admitted, but he thanked Baron, and the filmmakers, for drawing attention to an issue that was so painful for him.

Lule asked Baron to respond to his impression that “communities have lost faith in journalism.”

Baron answered, “We should do our jobs.”

He said journalists “have an absolute obligation to tell the truth,” but beyond that, they “can’t control whether people listen or not.” The fact that the press sometimes makes mistakes “shouldn’t discredit us,” he said.

One of the problems today, he said, is with the rise of talk radio and television networks like Fox and MSNBC, “people tend to be drawn to sources of information that reinforce their point of view.

“People believe what they want to believe,” he said, referencing the many people who still believe President Obama is a Muslim, or not a U.S. citizen, in spite of no evidence to support this.

He advised the audience to read widely and ask if the news outlets they depend on are trustworthy.

Ultimately, the “Spotlight” investigation has had a wide-ranging impact, not only on the Catholic hierarchy in Boston, but around the country. In its wake, the church has implemented some reforms, and other newspapers have formed investigative units.

Finally, Baron read a letter from Father Tom Doyle, a priest who fought for abuse victims, which concluded, “This nightmare would have gone on and on without you and the Boston Globe staff.”