Mitch Albom is getting a drubbing for concocting a piece about a game he hadn’t (yet) attended and filing the story without waiting to see if it would turn true. He got caught when he guessed wrong who would be at the game. He swears it’s the only time it’s happened. Gee, I hope so.
I remember a reporter once telling me how he “evergreened” articles for when he was on vacation. I do that sometimes with blog postings, although never about events that have not yet taken place. Oddly, Albom may inspire me to do that… but his is a cautionary tale to keep my “predictions” in draft status, so my fingers have to do the walking, and my brain some reviewing, before my words go live.
Posted on this day, other years:
- Chocolate Pecan Pie - 2007
- ALA Election Update - 2006
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This is bad of me, but it’s a relief to see Albom taken down a peg. I’ve followed his career off and on since he was just a local Detroit writer and radio guy. A well written feature story can be inspiring and I enjoy the thrill of finding a great story where you least expect it, but Albom’s writing has never affected me the way some good random pieces I’ve read in various mags and quarterlies over the years (GQ, etc. and I am talking well before David Sedaris came on the scene.) Albom’s “personality” just always seems in the way. Have you read “Best American Sports Writing of the Century”? I heard a few excerpts read on the radio that were so moving, it didn’t even matter that I’m not way into sports. The kind of collections on your recently read list are the type I like to read (features or short stories)most after nonfiction, but I always feel I should be reading the classics I haven’t gotten to yet. It’s sick the guilt I feel for not having read Saul Bellow before he died.