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http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-edppubcol102603102603oct26,0,2653647.story
COMMENTARY: MANNING PYNN
A high premium on truth, a lifelong dream realized
Manning Pynn
October 26, 2003
In a meticulously reported five-part series this past week, readers learned of a rash of addiction and deaths from oxycodone, the active ingredient in OxyContin and other drugs.
It was not, as one anonymous caller to the Sentinel suggested, an opportunistic response to radio commentator Rush Limbaugh's recent admission of his addiction.
On the contrary, reporter Doris Bloodsworth had been poring over thousands of pages of documents and interviewing dozens of people for the previous nine months to determine what was causing so many people to die.
"I was prepared to write that OxyContin and Purdue [Pharma, the drug's manufacturer] have been maligned unfairly," she said, describing her attitude going into the project.
It didn't turn out that way.
In examining numerous autopsy and police reports from throughout Florida, she found that more people had died from using oxycodone in 2001 and 2002 than from heroin. And OxyContin was the drug identified in about 83 percent of the 247 cases linked to a specific medication.
That's the kind of investigative work that comes, as a rule, only from seasoned journalistic veterans -- and you might regard Bloodsworth as that. But she didn't come to that point by the usual route.
She describes herself as having been "a mom with a word processor" who always wanted to be a reporter -- even as young as 5, when she won a short-wave radio for printing her name correctly on a slip in a grocery-store writing contest. She places a high premium on truth, explaining that her parents impressed upon her that "most important of all was to be honest."
But after growing up in Groveland in the 1960s, marrying her high-school boyfriend and having two children, she decided that the dream of becoming a reporter was just that: a dream.
Bloodsworth held a variety of jobs -- secretary, parent-resource-center worker and airlines reservation clerk. She was happy but said she thought to herself, "It looks like I'll never get to be a reporter."
It wasn't until the '90s -- with son, Derek, and daughter, Jenifer, grown -- that husband, John, encouraged her to embark on a path that would take her first to the University of Central Florida, then on to a journalism degree from the University of Florida.
Her maturity, though, bought her no advantage. Like other recent graduates, she had to pay her dues, serving internships and working as a newsroom clerk before eventually realizing her dream of becoming a reporter for the Sentinel.
This past week's series demonstrates what she did with that opportunity.
As Bloodsworth reported Thursday, Purdue Pharma has challenged the truth of some elements of her reporting. That is not unexpected in any investigative project.
The company's points will receive full consideration, as Bloodsworth agrees they should.
"In the home I grew up in," she said, "you would not think of telling a lie."
Manning Pynn can be reached at [email protected] or 407-650-6410. |