Albom's MSU mistake another embarrassment

April 25, 2005 —

What is it with the media these days? While it may seem odd for a newspaper to be criticizing a group it belongs to, there are some journalists - both print and broadcast - that are making the rest of us look bad. And we don't like it.

As if most people weren't already skeptical about everything being printed and broadcast these days, the Detroit Free Press' Mitch Albom - whose fan club was already diminishing by the day - just gave the cynics more credibility. Albom, who won numerous Sports Columnist of the Year awards from the Associated Press, got caught up in what was a partially fabricated story that ended up being completely fabricated.

Two days prior to Michigan State's Final Four game against North Carolina, Albom interviewed ex-Spartans Mateen Cleaves and Saginaw's own Jason Richardson, both of whom were on the MSU team that won the 2000 NCAA Tournament. While both players were busy with their NBA careers - Richardson's flourishing, Cleaves' almost nonexistent - they made plans to attend the game and told Albom so.

With the game being on a Saturday night and Albom's column being published on Sunday morning, the column was written, submitted and printed before the game was even played. Problem was, Richardson and Cleaves had a scheduling conflict and didn't attend the game.

"In the audience Saturday at the Final Four...," Albom wrote, "there were two former stars for Michigan State, Mateen Cleaves and Jason Richardson. They sat in the stands, in their MSU clothing, and rooted on their alma mater."

To his credit, Albom acknowledged the error, apologized in his column, and is now being "disicplined," according to the Free Press' publisher. That's the right move. But that doesn't change the fact that he embarrassed himself, the Free Press, and the media in general.

When Dan Rather made his mistake in the fall, we wrote it was unprofessional, which it obviously was. But looking back, it was much worse than that. It ruined Rather's credibility, and now - although the mistake wasn't the given reason - he's not doing the evening news anymore. Several letters to the editor at the Free Press called for Albom's job, writing that if it were a lesser-known columnist then the writer would be gone immediately. We agree.

Other writers compared Albom to Jayson Blair, who completely and knowingly fabricated stories for the New York Times. While Albom's fabrication was not as malicious as Blair's, it was unprofessional. We cannot accept this type of work from a columnist whose work is declining and interests seem to lie in everything but his Free Press work.

Mitch Albom embarrassed us, the media. Because of his unprofessional work and the aforementioned other culprits, the media's reputation is slowly dying.