Mitch Albom

I'm a little bit stunned by the Mitch Albom controversy at the Detroit Free Press. I've done some business in Detroit, and I was struck by what a demi-god this guy is in the Detroit area. My parents love his books, and I have a passing familiarity with him via his column and TV work, but when I got to Detroit, he was on an all different level. And ya know what, I found myself really liking the guy. As I stood in line an insane amount of time to get a book signed by him for my parents, I saw him show up late, apologize to the crowd, and announce that he'd stay well beyond his announced ending time in order to sign everyones' books. I also watched up close as he graciously granted one young woman's request for him to talk to her mom on her cell phone.

But...even though I found myself really liking the guy, there is really no excuse for his habit of not correctly attributing the sources of his quotes and of writing stories before the events occured. He has made excuses on this, saying that the columnists are/should be held to a different standard. No Mitch, they shouldn't be. If you lift a quote from someone else's work, attribute it. If you can't witness an event you want to write about as if you are there, don't file a column on it. I'm not really sure of what to make of Albom now. I had begun to really respect him, but I don't respect the way that he is responding to all of this. Next time I'm in Detroit, I'll be interested to see if the community responds differently to him than it did in my last visit.