Murray Waas Tells All
Update: Murray tells his story in his own words. Empty Wheel weighs in with some personal experience of her own.
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The intrepid reporter Murray Waas had a secret. He's decided to tell. Howie Kurtz in the Washington Post has the details. Murray is a cancer survivor. At age 26, he was told 90% of people with his kind of cancer are dead within two years. He sued the George Washington Medical Center and won $650,000, a verdict upheld on appeal, for failing to properly diagnose him. Happily, the doctors were wrong, and despite a recurrance in 2000, he is now cancer-free.
Some may question whether Murray's illness affected his reporting. Kurtz writes:
Waas acknowledges that the disease influenced him in the late 1980s when he was writing for the Boston Globe about the collapse of Florida health care facilities where some cancer patients had died. "I wrote that as someone who my family and doctors thought was certainly going to die from cancer," he says. "Is it relevant to my work when I report on national security, foreign policy or politics? I don't think so."
But the lines are not so easily drawn. In one of several conversations, Waas says his near-death experience made him more determined to report on how the country got into both Persian Gulf wars, with their life-and-death stakes. After watching on Capitol Hill when the Gulf War resolution was approved in 1991, Waas interviewed two men at the Vietnam War Memorial who said two of their friends had died in that war and questioned why the United States was getting into another one. He saw in this "the mirror image of my own life" -- the unresolved questions about why his cancer was missed -- and vowed to fully investigate the war.
"Cancer almost cost me my life, but the experience led me to do the most important reporting of my career," he says.
Murray will have his own explanation up sometime today. I'll link to it when it's available. I read an advance copy last night and spoke with him on the phone. Murray is a great reporter and a great person. He is a huge part of our netroots community. Please read his very moving story and give him your support. I'm proud to know him.
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