Albom Cover Up

From ERIC DEGGANS, columnist/editorial writer, [Poynter's] St. Petersburg Times: So..let's see. A columnist writes a piece on Friday about an event that is to happen Saturday. Because the column will run Sunday, he writes it as if he saw it happen or reported the facts after they happened, both of which are baldfaced lies.

Here is a line from that column: "They sat in the stands, in their MSU clothing, and rooted on their alma mater." How would Albom know on Friday what these guys were planning to wear Saturday?

More importantly, what editor in their right mind would let a columnist write like this? Albom tries to pretend in an "apology" column that all he did was misstate that these guys would be at the game. "It wasn't thorough journalism," he writes.

The truth is, Albom did far more than that.

Here's another quote: "And both made it a point to fly in from wherever they were in their professional schedule just to sit together Saturday. Richardson, who earns millions, flew by private plane. Cleaves, who's on his fourth team in five years, bought a ticket and flew commercial."

Now we see that Albom didn't just lie about the men being there and what they wore, he also cited details about their travel arrangements that turned out not to be true because they never showed up.

Here's the last graph on that column: "You looked around the stands Saturday, and you realized the truth: that you never know how right they are until you're the one saying it."

When Albom wrote that graph he couldn't look around the stands, because the game hadn't happened yet. And in its correction, the Free Press admits that Albom's column ran in a section printed BEFORE THE GAME.

Morrie was/will be rolling over in his grave.

At least I assume so, since I never read that book.