NO SCIENCE WRITER IS PERFECT!

by Ruth Winter

In a book review, I once mistakenly referred to a male author with a female pronoun. I quickly learned of the error when NASW member Alexandra Witze e-mailed, “You’ve probably heard from Dana Mackenzie by now. Dana is a man, not a woman. This comes from an Alex who is a woman, not a man.” Another member e-mailed and asked if Dana had undergone a sex change.

It made me think of mistakes I made through the years—fortunately not too many and none have landed me in court—but there was one that stands out. When I first started out as a medical writer at The Star-Ledger, in Newark, I received a call from a volunteer at the Veterans Hospital. She told me about a “veteran who cries on holidays” because his wife and children were living in a rural New Jersey shack without adequate food or facilities. Indeed, I found his family was living in dire circumstances so I wrote a story titled “The Veteran Who Cries on Holidays.”

It became a national story and the phone lines at The Ledger were jammed by nightfall. This was in the days before the Internet and computers, so a busy signal meant correspondents had trouble filing their stories. A doctor’s wife with the same name as mine had a listed phone number (I did not). Her phone was ringing constantly and finally at 2 a.m., about to have a nervous breakdown, she gave out my number.

The next morning, I was summoned to the switchboard and standing there was the bodyguard of one of New Jersey’s leading mafiosos. “Dem poor kids!” he said and handed me a big wad of bills.

Back in the newsroom, I received a call from a detective who asked me: “Do you really know why this guy is in the hospital?”

My mistake was not finding out! I had assumed it was just because of depression but the detective told me the veteran was in the hospital as a plea deal because he had molested an 11-year-old girl. YIKES! The money and the calls were pouring in and the veteran decided to sign himself out of the hospital to take advantage of the situation. Fortunately, it was before Watergate-wannabe-journalists and TV magazine shows.

My city editor was straight out of Front Page.

“Don’t worry,” he said. He arranged to buy the vet a car, gave the family the rest of the money collected, and shipped them all back to the Southern state from which they had emigrated.

Another time I was saved from making a mistake while working at The Houston Press. I was the only reporter covering a speech by Dr. Paul Dudley White, President Eisenhower’s famed cardiologist. After the speech, I interviewed Dr. White, who told me, “Eisenhower’s heart is so bad, he won’t live to finish his second term.” A great scoop for a very young reporter and, excited, I went back to the office to write it. My editor told me the paper could not use the story. The Harris County Medical Society officers had called him and objected to Dr. White’s observation and said that it would be irresponsible to publish it. My story was killed—which was fortunate. President Eisenhower lived through his second term, but Dr. White died!

Getting back to Dana Mackenzie, I never heard from him about the gender mix-up. Maybe he’s used to it or is just a nice guy.

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Freelance Ruth Winter lives in Short Hills, NJ and is the author of 34 books on health topics.