Noted author and journalist Mitch Albom addressed graduating MSU seniors on Saturday and told them “above all else to thine own self be true.” The author of several New York Times Best Sellers including “Five People You Meet in Heaven,” also apologized for his five-year-old lapse of journalistic ethics, when in April of 2006 he reported that two former MSU players attended the Final Four game when in fact they did not. In the article he went as far as describing what former MSU Basketball Players Mateen Cleeves and Jason Richardson were wearing. When it was later discovered they did not attend the game and that Albom had created fiction rather than fact a controvery erupted at the Free Press. When it appeared that there would be no action against Albom, Free Press staffers threatened to walk out causing management to take some limited action. Read more about the entire mess in the USA Today.
Albom told the graduating seniors that many thought he got off lightly, but he said he thought the public learned more by his suspension-”it was a teaching moment,” he said.
The author also said he didn’t think that his indiscretions in journalism should taint his non-fiction successes as an author.
“All those things really happened,” Albom told the crowd of jubilant graduates who gave Albom, decked out in a blue sport coat and yellow shirt, a standing ovation.
Hold it right there. None of that might have happened because I wasn’t actually at MSU graduation yesterday. No matter, ethics aside I have to ask why MSU saw fit to ask Albom, who writes tired tales about dead men, to speak to a class of graduating seniors. Sure, he’s been a success, but at what cost? There’s plenty of other journalist-authors who can talk about working hard, nose to the grindwheel and all that, in fact Pulitzer Prize winning author and MSU graduate Richard Ford comes to mind. Hey, James Frey would’ve been more interesting to graduates.
Albom who received an honorary doctorate of humanities addressed undergraduates from the colleges of Arts and Letters, Eli Broad Business, Education, Music and Social Science, as well as James Madison College and the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities. Good choice to not include the grads from School of Journalism.
Perhaps if you had gone to the graduation you might have learned that the name of his book is Tuesdays With Morrie. Also the idiom is “keep your nose to the grindstone”. Before you criticize other journalists maybe you should do a little fact checking on your own editoral.
Two excellent points which I will answer. I’m glad someone was awake. First, how could anyone not know it was Tuesdays-the point was if you make something up why not make up what day you may or may not have met with Morrie. Maybe the book should’ve been called Thursdays with Morrie or Every Other week with Morrie.
And second point-I don’t ever-well almost never-ever use tired idioms unless they are of my own making. I worked once for a boss whose would give speeches filled with idioms from one end ’til the other and was that interesting. Most unfortunately, he was a former football player who couldn’t help but to express himself in terms of “third and long”.
I usually let things slide but in this case I had to answer. The point of not going to graduation, but writing about it I think was obivious and justifiably the actual graduation got all the attention it deserved. Many fine journalists got fired for what Albom did-they did not get a second chance and then get paid to make graduation speeches and snag an honorary degree.
Thanks for the reply. If you are a nationally known and well liked journalist you probably get a pass on some things that would warrant termination for lesser known writers. Not fair but true.
I got a good chuckle from this lovely article’s title. Zing!