Best Columnist Ever...

This discussion, for me, begins and ends, with Jim Murray.

 

Yeah I know but the guy still wrote a hell of a column. It was rare to see such a talented columnist in Metro section.

 

So you can be absolutely obsessive about ripping honest writers who you don't happen to like, but a plagiarist gets a pass just because you like him.

Actually, Barnicle was initially only suspended for plagiarism. He later was forced to resign because of plagiarism and fabrication.

That may be why you found him so entertaining.

 

What's so wrong with fabrication? / Mitch Albom

 

Without rehashing point by point, I think Albom's in a much grayer area. He didn't deceive his editors, they would have had to be retarded to not know what he was doing. He had nothing to gain from it (not really a prize-winning piece), he was trying to give the paper something that looked fresh in spite of a bad deadline. It was bad, but Barnicle was much worse.

Allegations of fabrication had dogged Barnicle through the years. What finally did him in was a Globe column about young cancer victims that was so moving, Reader's Digest wanted to reprint it. Except the RD people could not confirm any of the facts. The Globe didn't find out about this until a few years later after Barnicle already had been suspended for plagiarism.

 

Sweet Jesus, everyone should print this out and tape it to his or her monitors.

Let the reign of the doofuses be over soon!

 

Why, do you think the contests are fixed? Assuming you don't, and assuming the contest entries have had column sigs removed so it doesn't become a popularity contest, what is your problem? He won fair and square.

I'm not a fan of contests because I think readers value consistency. If they've made up their minds that a columnist sucks, they stop reading and will miss those half-dozen award-winners per year. It's not like they open the paper and say, "Maybe he won't suck today, I should read him." But that's not what contests are about. If Albom stops entering, it doesn't mean the winner is going to be somebody more "worthy." It means it's going to be someone who can write four good columns in a year.

 

Sigh.

We are, assumedly, sports writers on here.

We don't need contests to tell us who is good. We can read. We can think. We can discuss.

To declare someone "the objective king of columnists" for winning contests is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

JFK won a Pulitzer Prize for Profiles in Courage, which wasn't that good, and which he probably didn't write.

That doesn't mean that other Pulitzer winners weren't deserving, and it doesn't mean that JFK was a great author. It means he won an award, somehow.

You think Albom's a great writer? Show me some great writing.

Don't prattle on about contests, and certainly don't act like they are the be all, end all.

 

You don't have to like him. But it's not like he won once or twice. In blind taste tests, year after year, with different judges, all of them journalists, he wins almost every goddamn time. In spite of doing all that assorted bullshit in other media, he beats everyone else consistently. Give him that.

I swear, sometimes the Albom and Lupica bashing seems like people buying whatever sneakers are in fashion. Oh, it's "in" to bash a dwarf? Better get on it!

 

Frank's right.

Look, Albom comes off these days as a guy who doesn't really even follow sports much -- pretty much has a layman's knowledge. I don't bother with him much anymore.

But give him credit. He can write.

Win once, maybe it's a fluke. Win year after year, and you can't call it a fluke without sounding petty.

 

You are, indeed, new to this board, aren't you...
**sigh**
Yes, he can write. It's the baggage and the attitude that comes with it that creates a whole new ball game...

 

The same batch of people win these contests every year. Virtually the same people do the judging.

It's the elk lodge that most right-thinking people know it to be.