Kindred on Albom receiving this year's Red Smith Award

And it was a pretty good joke, too.
I thought Kindred's explanation for what he wrote about Magic Johnson was pretty thoughtful and decent. Not sure it required such a strident reply.

 

Agree. Why the hell is the APSE not taking heat for this as well?

 

From who? Other APSE's? Maybe, those from the Gannett chain? Or those who use him on a regular basis by wire?

 

What Albom did was terrible. But what really pissed me off was the way he acted like it was no big deal and that people were making too much of an issue over it. How dare they question the great Mitch Albom?

 

There were 104 pages of venom spewed on this site, Charlie Brown.

So yes, people did "make too much of an issue" about it. Albom basically spilled a barrel of oil and ruined the carpet. The reaction lit a match and burned the house down. The reaction was far more than the "crime" deserved. Albom didn't burn anyone's house down. Short of a public stoning, I'm curious exactly what would have to happen for some people to believe that too much was made of it. And I'm curious how many on here would actually start hunting for stones.

On a list of "100 worst and/or most damaging journalistic fuckups of the past decade", the Final Four column would be somewhere in the second 50. Where are the 104-page diatribes on the others?

Frank Ridgeway said it better than I could have:

 

The issue with Albom is that it was considered by many in the industry to be far from an isolated incident.

People were reacting to him finally getting caught for what is perceived as a long pattern of deception or fiction or fudging the facts that has helped to earn him millions.

 

Fair enough. Then . . .

So I reiterate . . . too much was made of it.

 

Again.

We're not talking about whether he keeps his fucking job. That was decided five years ago when he kept his fucking job.

We're talking about whether you honor him with the fucking lifetime achievement award.

 

Interesting use of the word "pattern," though.

 

From where I sat, he acted like it was a no big deal and how dare people question him. That I take issue with. His apology to me was phony. If you don't like it, too bad, Linus.

 

No. We were talking about that. Then it quickly morphed into the usual "Little Lord Mitchelroy" and "Myth Albom" and "arrogant little shithead" and "most hated" and "sitting by himself because no one can stand him" and "Tuesday's With Morrie was a complete fabrication" nonsense, which is odd because SOMEBODY keeps giving him these awards. It's like another damn parallel universe on here.

There pretty much has to be a pattern for anything to mean anything.

When I was just starting out the columnist at our local paper was a legend in our parts. He had this odd quirk, though, of never writing down notes during post-game interviews. He would just listen while the rest of us were carrying notebooks and tape recorders. The quotes in his stories were somehow remembered a little differenly than what we had. How could they not be? Is that a pattern of dishonesty?

The columnist at the competing paper, when he was at a big event, would have us deskers read him the stories filed by UPI's Milton Richman and others, to see if there might be a clever line or angle he could use. Is that a pattern of dishonesty?

Both of these man are Hall of Famers in the state I grew up in.

I wish I could believe that everybody on here "played by the book" the way they pretend to. But you cannot do this job without taking shortcuts. Not when games end 3 seconds before deadline. Whether it's filing a gamer before you know the actual score or having someone else get quotes for you, shortcuts are taken every single day by just about everyone. Arguing which shortcuts are acceptable and which aren't is a very blurry and gray area.

 

What about the Opening Day at Tiger Stadium Dance with Death column?