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Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 4/7/2005 2:17:50 PM
Title: Freep needs to do more than issue an apology
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
From ERIC DEGGANS, columnist/editorial writer, [Poynter's] St. Petersburg Times: So..let's see. A columnist writes a piece on Friday about an event that is to happen Saturday. Because the column will run Sunday, he writes it as if he saw it happen or reported the facts after they happened, both of which are baldfaced lies.

Here is a line from that column: "They sat in the stands, in their MSU clothing, and rooted on their alma mater." How would Albom know on Friday what these guys were planning to wear Saturday?

More importantly, what editor in their right mind would let a columnist write like this? Albom tries to pretend in an "apology" column that all he did was misstate that these guys would be at the game. "It wasn't thorough journalism," he writes.

The truth is, Albom did far more than that.

Here's another quote: "And both made it a point to fly in from wherever they were in their professional  schedule just to sit together Saturday. Richardson, who earns millions, flew by  private plane. Cleaves, who's on his fourth team in five years, bought a ticket  and flew commercial."

Now we see that Albom didn't just lie about the men being there and what they wore, he also cited details about their travel arrangements that turned out not to be true because they never showed up.

Here's the last graph on that column: "You looked around the stands Saturday, and you realized the truth: that you never know how right they are until you're the one saying it."

When Albom wrote that graph he couldn't look around the stands, because the game hadn't happened yet. And in its correction, the Free Press admits that Albom's column ran in a section printed BEFORE THE GAME.

That means anyone who read the column in that section and knew the Free Press' publication schedule, knew he couldn't have witnessed the events reported, or unearthed them after the fact. Certainly, every editor at the newspaper had to know Albom's column was bogus. But they only admitted it when the players failed to attend the game and shattered their charade.

Joe Hass is right when he notes others would be fired for what Albom did. And given the cicumstances, Albom isn't the only journalist at the Free Press who lied to readers to make this column happen.

To save the newspaper's credibility, there needs to be more punishment for Albom and his enablers than an embarassing correction and mea culpa column. Whether or not the Free Press has the stones to take action and salvage its reputation is the only question remaining.

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