Remembering the day I almost found a cure for cancer

“2012 marks the 40th anniversary of the year in which humanity finally cured cancer. Readers of today’s obituary pages may doubt this. But I know about the anniversary because I broke the cancer cure story for the Associated Press. Forty years later, alas, my story remains unmatched. The experience taught me a valuable lesson about journalism.

“I was a 23-year-old reporter working for the AP in Charlotte, alone in the office on an autumn Saturday evening….”

— From “Reporter at Work: It Could Have Been My Biggest Story” by Bob Cullen at jacklimpert.com (Dec. 13, 2012)

Reporters such as Cullen have always struggled with speed vs. accuracy. Unfortunately, as coverage of the Newtown killings illustrates, speed now seems to have claimed the upper hand. 

 

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