Revisiting Mitch Albom

Mitch Albom's journalistic mistake is causing some jaws to drop. Some are even comparing him to Jayson Blair, the New York Times reporter canned for making stuff up and passing it off as news writing.

Some interesting pull quotes from a Michael Hirsley piece:

What Albom did was write a column as if his two interview subjects were at the Michigan State-North Carolina NCAA tournament Final Four game in St. Louis on April 2. In earlier interviews, former Michigan State players Jason Richardson and Mateen Cleaves told Albom they planned to attend the game, but they did not.

Filing on Friday for a section that was printed by Saturday morning, several hours before the game, Albom wrote, and copy editors did not change, that Richardson and Cleaves had flown in for the game and were in the stands wearing Michigan State clothing.

It turned out schedule conflicts kept both players from attending the game.

"It's not viewed as a minor infraction because in the minds of the editors, it was a fabrication," Free Press public editor John X. Miller said of the column gaffe. "More than being factually wrong, this was something reported that did not happen."

... and ...

Rebecca Ann Lind, an associate professor of communication at University of Illinois-Chicago whose specialty is media ethics, said pressure to be "up to the minute" causes mistakes such as Albom's.

If it continues, she said, "Where is the line between making something up that you think will happen and simply making something up?"

... and ...

High-profile ethical missteps including fabrications and plagiarism ended the careers of reporters [Jack] Kelley at USA Today, [Jayson] Blair at the New York Times and [Uli] Schmetzer at the Chicago Tribune.

In 2003, Albom wrote a scathing column about Blair's book-deal ambition and lack of contrition after his downfall.

"What he doesn't get is that journalism is not Hollywood," Albom wrote. "It's not about closing the deal. It's not about face time. It's about - simply put - telling the truth." [Emphasis added]

Perhaps, because it was sports, Albom did not think these comments applied to his writing. Or perhaps he made an honest mistake, one brief moment when he got rushed, or got lazy, or what-have-you. Perhaps with proper contrition, he could be forgiven. I think I might be willing to forgive him. But he will probably pay a dear price for this one slip.