Mitch Albom's Troubles

This story may have flown under your radar. It flew under mine, anyway. Mitch Albom, a columnist for the Detroit Free Press, among many other activities, has been suspended from his duties while the paper investigates a fabrication in a story he filed from St. Louis during the Final Four.

Albom wrote a column about the differences between playing for your college and playing in the pros, and he interviewed two former Michigan St players, Mateen Cleaves and Jason Richardson, about their experiences.

At the beginning of the column, he described how the players made a special effort to get to the game and sit together (both are in the NBA) and recapture some of that old college feeling. He even talks about how they got there.

The problem is they never made it. Schedule conflicts caused them to abandon their plans. They had both told Albom they were planning to attend, so he wrote it into the column that they had attended (past tense) because the column was written on Friday for Sunday publication. The game was on Saturday.

In journalism, this is a big mistake. The number one thing in reporting is to get the facts right. He should have made sure the players actually made it to the game, and an editor should have probably asked him if they did. He also could have simply written something like “planned to attend” or “scheduled to attend” so it wouldn’t have mattered if they showed up or not.

Albom is handling this in the best possible way, which is basically to apologize all over himself and make no defense of his actions. He and his editors may lose their jobs over this, but I think that would be a bit of overkill. This is clearly an error in judgment, a “rookie mistake” in Albom’s own words, but it doesn’t rise to the level of, say, plagiarism, which was among the sins committed by Jayson Blair at the New York Times and Jack Kelley at USA Today. The column’s point isn’t impacted by whether the players actually attended the game. He had no ulterior motive like impressing his bosses or advancing his career. This appears to be only a little worse of a mistake than getting the score of the game wrong. That would be pretty embarrassing too. It seems to me that the suspension he is currently serving, and the shame of making such a silly mistake, is punishment enough in this case. If the Free Press feels compelled to fire him, I have no doubt that he won’t be unemployed any longer than he chooses to be.

Now for my full disclosure. Those of you familiar with my work know that I have a lot of contacts, and even some friends, in the media. Albom, however, isn’t one of them. I’ve never met or talked to him, so I’m watching this story as a disinterested observer.