Marie Winn, a journalist, author and birdwatcher, is known for her books and articles on the birds of Central Park and also for her critical coverage of television. Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Winn is a U.S. citizen who attended the Bronx High School of Science, Radcliffe College and Columbia University.

The author of the influential The Plug-In Drug (1977), an often scathing critique of television's addictive influence on the young, Winn wrote, "The television experience allows the participant to blot out the real world and enter into a pleasurable and passive mental state." In 2002, she added new material to update the study as The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life, published on the 25th anniversary of the original book.

An advocate for protecting wildlife, she gave the name Pale Male to the Red-tailed Hawk that nested on a Fifth Avenue building, receiving much press coverage. She was prominent in preserving Pale Male's nest when it was threatened with removal. She wrote about Red-tailed Hawks in her book, Red-Tails in Love: Pale Male's Story - A True Wildlife Drama in Central Park (1998). The book was an expansion of her ornithology column in The Wall Street Journal and was adapted into Frederic Lilien's documentary film, Pale Male (2002).

When she was a 21-year-old Columbia student, Winn was involved in the 1950s quiz show scandals. Edward Hilgemeier, Jr., found a notebook with answers belonging to her while they were contestants on the quiz show Dotto. When excerpts from Winn's The Plug-In Drug : Television, Computers, and Family Life were included in a communications textbook of the 1990s, a 1998 review board took note of Winn's quiz show background, ^* because Winn's book does not acknowledge her role in television game show scandals, even though it is an accepted media studies text, praised by academics.

Selected bibliography

• Red-Tails in Love (1998)
• The Plug-In Drug (1977, 2002)
• Birds of Central Park by Cal Vornberger, foreword by Marie Winn

External links

• The Birds of Central Park: An Annotated Checklist by Marie Winn and Rebekah Creshkoff (pdf file)
• Marie Winn and Rebekah Creshkoff in Cardinal costumes at Pale Male Eviction Protest Rally (12/12/04)
• Marie Winn official site
• Marie Winn on Dotto
• Pale Male
• Pale Male documentary film

American ornithologists | Living people