Today’s Media Notes column by Howard Kurtz talks about a recent piece by columnist and author Mitch Albom which appeared in Sunday’s Detroit Free Press. Why did the column get so much attention? Well, because as it turns out, Mitch made up a few minor details — because he didn’t actually attend the game in question.
In the crowd, [Albom] wrote, “there were two former stars for Michigan State, Mateen Cleaves and Jason Richardson,” who “sat in the stands, in their MSU clothing, and rooted on their alma mater.” Except that the two men weren’t at the game. Which Albom had no way of knowing, since he filed the column Friday, before the basketball game.
That, the best-selling author admitted in a column last week, was “a bad move.” Although the former players told him they planned to attend, “I wrote it in the past tense, as if it already had happened. . . . You can’t write that something happened that didn’t. I owe you and the Free Press an apology.”
The paper has announced an investigation into how the column made it past the editorial staff, but several readers in today’s Media Backtalk chat had their own suspicions…
Big Time Columnists: With all the multimedia pursuits of Bob Ryan, Mitch Albom, Kornheiser and Wilbon, how much pressure do editors have to assuage egos instead of disciplining a writer?
What prevented Ryan or Albom from saying, “I make more money from broadcasting and other interests than dead trees.”
Do print guys view newspapers as a superior place to work?
Skip Bayless and Woody Paige left pretty good jobs to work in TV full time.
Wouldn’t losing a Albom type affect the Free Press more than vice versa?
Howard Kurtz: Probably. He’s a pretty big name, and undoubtedly makes plenty of money on the outside. But this wasn’t a matter of taste or sentence structure where editors might have said, “You know, he’s Mitch Albom, he sells papers, let him say what he wants.” This was a column about an event that hadn’t happened yet. The editors would have done themselves and Albom a big favor if they had said you just can’t do this.
Sports Columnists: With all the ESPN opportunities presented to the likes of Albom, Ryan, Kornheiser and Wilbon, can newspaper editors really exert much control?
All of these personalities must triple their salary in electronic media?
After all, Skip Bayless doesn’t write for a paper anymore and Woody Paige no longer lives in Denver even though he sometimes writes for the Denver Post.
Howard Kurtz: Sure. Editors are responsible for what goes in the paper. The only thing a sports editor at the Freep had to do was say, “Mitch, this doesn’t meet our standards. You can’t write about something that hasn’t happened yet. We’re not publishing this unless you rewrite it.” At that moment, the best-selling books or TV and radio contracts don’t mean anything. The editors just fell down on the job, as the Free Press’s public editor acknowledged to me. I do give the paper credit for announcing an investigation in a front-page piece by the publisher.
Washington, D.C.: What are the odds that Albom loses his job? Would I be correct in thinking that if this had happened with a lower-profile columnist, he’d already be out the door?
Howard Kurtz: If I were to set odds on Albom losing his job, I’d be doing just what he did–predicting a future event that hasn’t happened yet. I guess it depends on what the Free Press inquiry finds both about his role and that of his editors.
(That string of blockquotes should look much better when I switch to the new WordPress 1.5 theme I’m tweaking, or at least I hope it does.)
I sort of doubt Albom will lose his job; I also doubt any of the editorial staff will, either. It’s probably going to earn somebody a major chewing-out session, but unless it’s proven to be part of an ongoing issue regarding editorial oversight, it’s likely to be dismissed as a one-off. That said, it doesn’t exactly reflect well on anybody involved. Editors shouldn’t be afraid to confront someone on a questionable aspect of their material, and reporters shouldn’t be using definitive language to describe events that stands a good chance of ending up inaccurate. Hopefully there’s a lesson here for newsrooms across the country.
On an unrelated note, another poster in the chat had this rather excellent suggestion:
Washington, D.C.: Since reporters give athletes such a hard time about personal off the field mistakes, I am surprised that athletes don’t organize research into the ’skeletons in the closet’ of reporters and hold them to the same standards that reporters hold athletes to. Now that would make an interesting blog, find out about the shady secrets and dealings of reporters. Have you heard of anything like this?
Howard Kurtz: Not yet, but you’ve probably given someone an idea.
Hey, don’t look at me.
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