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Autopsy Says NY Times Columnist David Carr Died Of Lung Cancer
By
Jen Chung
Published Feb 15, 2015
Modified Feb 15, 2015
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By
Jen Chung
Published Feb 15, 2015
Modified Feb 15, 2015
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The medical examiner's office has now revealed the cause of NY Times media columnist David Carr's death.
The Times reports, "According to the office of the chief medical examiner of New York City, which conducted an autopsy, Mr. Carr died of complications of metastatic small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the lung. Heart disease was a contributing factor, the medical examiner said." The Times also noted that he "was a survivor of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system, and described his experiences as a cancer patient in his 2008 memoir, 'The Night of the Gun.'"
On Thursday night, after moderating a panel with filmmaker Laura Poitras, journalist Glenn Greenwald and, by video, government-surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden— to discuss Poitras’s Academy Award-nominated documentary about Snowden, Citizenfour—Carr collapsed in the Times newsroom.
According to the Post, "A co-worker — who spoke to Carr in a meeting a mere 30 minutes prior — found the 58-year-old journalist near his cubicle at the paper’s Midtown headquarters at about 9 p.m. and performed CPR on the unconscious journalist, law-enforcement sources told The Post. Emergency responders also tried to revive Carr before he was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead."
Carr, who not only covered the media industry but served as a guiding force for many journalists, was frank and open about his addiction. In a Times magazine piece about his memoir, he wrote, "By 1985, I tried freebasing coke and its more prosaic sibling, crack. 'Crackhead' is an embarrassing line item to have on a résumé. If meth tweakers had not come along and made a grab for the crown — meth makes you crazy and toothless — crackheads would be at the bottom of the junkie org chart."
Writer Seth Mnookin, who worked with Carr at Inside.com, wrote on Twitter, "David was just a lovely, wonderful, generous, caring, decent and human human being. And there are far fewer of those," and then lamented, "Oh fuck. It's hard to be surprised by the death of a chain smoker w/a health history that should be taught in medical school. But just fuck." and "And: fuck you for not quitting smoking. You were most generous person I knew but you robbed me of decades of a real & much needed friend."
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david carr
lung cancer
media
ny times
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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