Kindred on Albom receiving this year's Red Smith Award

"You can ignore your readers and put out content targeted at contest judges when there’s no place else for readers to go."

Funny thing is, the Kansas City Star is just as guilty, if not more guilty, than anyone of this. Wasn't Mike Fannin the APSE president a few years ago?

 

Odd that Whitlock brags about knowing the Fab Five were on the take, yet he didn't pursue that angle in his reporting back then.

 

Whitlock twitters: APSE has spoken: Barry Bonds (Myth Albom) gets in the Hall of Fame.

 

That jumped out at me, too. Honestly, my first thought was that Whitlock must have broken the scandal after playing pinball and is being modest now (I know, I know). My Googling efforts on this were not fruitful. Who did break the story? Or, even, which paper?

 

Me too. Did Whitlock ever think that maybe Albmon was right and that Chris Webber couldn't afford to eat at McDonald's was because of his hefty SUV payments and interior decorating bills?

 

Don't forget the video games he let Whitlock play one day.

Just seems odd he's on his journalistic high horse yet admits to the sin of omission his owndamnself. And I say that as somebody who can't stand Albom's pablum.

 

Henry, I'll be willing to add corruption to my list and make it a Big Three alongside plagiarism and fiction. But if you don't think making stuff up and stealing it erode credibility every bit as much as being in some team's wallet, I think that's nuts.

 

I'd guess the same people who don't think this is a big deal are the same people who love "Tuesdays with Morrie", and probably all of Rick Reilly's work.

 

That's the meanest thing anyone's said to me in some time.

;-)

 

Somewhere in the middle reside people who believe it WAS a big deal . . . but not worth another 104 pages of "The Dwarf is the Devil" comments that we went through years ago.

 

I happened to like that thread.

 

Just to clarify an earlier post: the editors involved in the Albom incident were not fired but received brief suspensions. As did Albom. Also, the union, the very one that he snubbed by crossing the picket line, intervened on his behalf to stop the investigation.