Oh Mitch, what would Morrie say?
Best-selling author Mitch Albom apologized Thursday to readers of the Detroit Free Press for incorrectly reporting that two former Michigan State players were at Saturday's NCAA basketball game. He said he wrote the column before the game took place.
Albom said he based the column on what former Michigan State players Mateen Cleaves and Jason Richardson told him they planned to do. He said he wrote the column in the past tense, as if the events already had happened, because the story had to be filed Friday afternoon -- a day before the game -- but would appear Sunday.
The Free Press said in a correction Thursday that Cleaves and Richardson were not at the game against North Carolina after all -- their plans changed because of scheduling conflicts.
That's good journalism. I suppose it would've been too hard to write something like, "Cleaves and Richardson are planning, along with many others, to sit in the stands in their MSU clothing and root for their alma mater."
As factual errors go, it's hardly up there with Stephen Glass or Jayson Blair (the latter of which Albom himself publicly denounced in his column some time ago), but it leads me to wonder how many times this has happened before. Filing stories early based on speculative information is hardly something new, and if the Free Press digs deeper and find this is part of a continuing pattern, well, the guy gets what he deserves.
I'm of two minds about the whole thing. On one hand, do we really hold "entertainment journalists" to the same standards as actual news reporters? If so, why don't more people (aside from the subjects themselves, that is) get up in arms over egregious info printed in People or US Weekly? Albom screwed up, but it sounded more like actual laziness than willful intent to lie at first glance. It isn't like he made up rumors about a ballplayer's sex life.
On the other hand, we have his "apology:"
While it was hardly the thrust of the column -- which was about nostalgia and college athletes -- it was wrong just the same. You can't write that something happened that didn't, even if it's just who sat in the stands. Perhaps, it seems a small detail to you -- the players still love their teams, they are still nostalgic, they simply decided not to go after the column had been filed -- but details are the backbone of journalism, and planning to be somewhere is not the same as being there.
So I owe you and the Free Press an apology, and you have it right here. It wasn't thorough journalism. While our deadlines would have required some weird writing -- something like, "By the time you read this, if Mateen and Jason stuck to their plans, they would have sat in the stands for Saturday's game" -- it should have been done. We have high standards at this newspaper, and I have high standards for myself. We -- the editors and I -- got caught in an assumption that shouldn't have happened. It won't again. Thanks.
Wow, that was like one of those mea culpas that weren't really mea culpas I used to give griflriends when I'd pissed them off ("I'm sorry for whatever I did that might have upset you"), Except Albom doesn't even say he's sorry. And as for the factual error "hardly being the thrust of the column," if you actually read the column you realize the whole damn thing was devoted to Cleaves and Richardson and their recollections. He didn't write something as (relatively) harmless as "among those in the stands at Saturday's game were..." but actually used them as the centerpiece of the article, with quotes and everything. I know, he interviewed them beforehand, but the impression he leaves you with is that he was talking with the guys at the game itself.
Finally, I need to divulge that I have a deep and abiding loathing for Mitch Albom and his work. His columns, which only use sports as a metaphor for whatever mealy-mouthed inspirational message Albom feels like pimping this week, are loaded with the kind of sanctimony I hope dies off with Andy Rooney. The condescension of his column about why "Star Wars geeks need to get a life" was the direct inspiration for my spiel about why the bahavior of sports fans isn't far removed from that of so-called nerds, behavior-wise.
The less said about the reverse peristalsis-inducing Tuesdays with Morrie, the better.
After seeing Albom doing the interview rounds for his latest manipulative work of genius, The Five People You Meet in Heaven (subtitled: "For Those Who Found It's A Wonderful Life Too Complicated), it became apparent to me that Albom doesn't believe any of this bilge he's selling. He mouths his platitudes and offers his groundbreaking inspirational insights (he could’ve just written “I’m okay, you’re okay” on an index card and been done with it), but you can see the dollar signs in his eyes as visions of #1 on the New York Times bestseller lists dance in his head.
All the same, I can't honestly hope for him to be fired. If he is, that'll just give him time to write more books.
Music reviewers get shitcanned for reviewing concerts they didn't go to. They're usually tripped up just like this.
The standards of music journalism are higher than sports journalism. Who'd've guessed?
So this is really because you don't like that he tweaked Star Wars fans? ;-)
That was the cherry on top. Albom's continued existence as a pompous suckhole spouting fortune cookie philosophy was bad enough, but his hypocrisy regarding science fiction fans (from a guy who writes about sports, of all things) sealed the deal.
I hear you, Pete, glad you wrote something on this. I have never cared for Albom's columns or the soundbites he's regularly given in our sports page, and definitely not for his sappy novels/TV movies. The one thing that really disappoints me, though, is Tony Kornheiser sticking up for him on his radio show. I know they're friends and all that, and at least Kornheiser admits that what Albom did was indefensible, yet he still says he'll "defend him until the end", as if they were 'made guys' in the mafia or something. I wish Kornheiser would give it a rest, for it's making him less likable and there's no way he should lose some of his credibility over a wanker like Albom.