Meet our journalists: Senior Herald writer Simon Wilson

NZME journalist Simon Wilson. Photo / Doug Sherring

• Name: Simon Wilson
• Age: 60-something
• Job: Senior writer
• Location: Herald newsroom, Auckland

Number of years as a journalist:

32

The best story I've worked on, and why:

Exposing the theory that poisonous gas in mattresses was responsible for sudden infant death syndrome (cot death). In the 1990s I was editor of Consumer magazine, during a time when the renowned chemist Dr Jim Sprott promoted a theory that baby mattresses should be wrapped in plastic to avoid babies dying on them. He was widely accepted by the media as an authority on the subject and he sold his own brand of wrapped mattresses. But he was wrong, and he caused unnecessary anguish to many parents, because he effectively blamed them for their babies' deaths. We researched in great depth and published an expose of the lack of science behind his claims. As a result, Sprott and his theory faded from the public eye. I'm very proud of having helped stop a man who was causing pain to extremely vulnerable people.

The one that got away:

I did a tour of Texas in mid-2016, during the Trump-Clinton presidential elections. But I was there on a travel assignment and simply did not have the time to go to election meetings or write about politics. The travel was great – especially in west Texas – but it really felt like I was there on the wrong assignment. I spent election night in a hotel bar in El Paso with people who were interested but didn't really care.

Career highlight:

When I was editor of Metro magazine I published Jon Stevenson's story Eyes Wide Shut, about abuses of the Geneva Convention by the NZ SAS in Afghanistan. A very tough story to bring to print, but immensely important, and it won awards here and overseas.

I love journalism because:

I get to sit in rooms and watch what's going on, work out what it means, and write about it. I like doing all those things.

But if I couldn't be a journalist:

I'd... be lost. I don't think I'd be much good at anything else.