By Roxanne "Flashbulb" Starr
Viewers know Maryam Moshiri from the BBC News desk — steady voice, steady presence, the kind of face you don't expect to see delivering news about herself. This week, according to the BBC, she did exactly that: telling her own network she has been diagnosed with blood cancer.
Moshiri said she chose to share her diagnosis publicly in order to raise awareness about the disease, the BBC reported. The corporation's report did not specify which type of blood cancer, her prognosis, or when she was diagnosed, and we won't fill in those blanks with guesswork. What's confirmed is the fact of the disclosure itself, and her stated reason for making it.
Presenters going public with serious illness always draws a particular kind of attention — sympathy, yes, but also scrutiny of how much a public figure owes their audience in the way of personal disclosure. Moshiri's answer, at least for now, is: enough to help someone else recognize the signs. Blood cancers — leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma among them — are often diagnosed late precisely because early symptoms are easy to dismiss as ordinary fatigue.
The BBC has not indicated whether Moshiri will step back from on-air duties during treatment. We'll update this story as more details are confirmed by the network. For now, what stands is a journalist choosing to become, briefly, the subject of her own reporting — for a reason bigger than herself.
If I can't source it, you won't read it here.
— Compiled from reporting by the BBC.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."