Murray Waas’ Full Disclosure

National Journal’s Murray Waas has made a career of uncovering secrets, but Howard Kurtz points out, “Murray Waas has been keeping one about himself for a long time.”

At 26, Waas was diagnosed with an advanced form of colon cancer and was told he had little chance of survival. More recently, Waas had to overcome a new bout of cancer, and the financial hardships that accompanied it. Waas only went public with his ordeal after receiving an inquiry from Washington City Paper (an inquiry, we hear, that has caused some tension between Waas and the City Paper). “I feel almost relieved getting it out,” he says. “I’m just fatigued from trying to hide it.”

Kurtz: “It’s hard to say where the line should be drawn when it comes to such an intensely personal disclosure. Did Waas’s near-death experience, and subsequent complications, affect his journalism? How could such a searing experience not change your outlook on work and life?”

Or maybe it was just personal. Waas: “I don’t want to be known as the reporter who had cancer.”

Waas discusses it a bit in his latest Huffington Post piece, “A Reporter’s Bias.”

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