David Brooks is held to a lower standard than sportswriter Mitch Albom

[Cocoa]

It's kind of funny, when Brooks reviewed Hillary Clinton's book, without having read it, I thought of a friend of mine in high school who got fired from our school paper for writing about a game he didn't attend. I wrote to Jim Lehrer and the NYT saying Brooks essentially did the same thing and asking why he's still employed while my friend got sacked.

I didn't get an answer, I'll ask them again in light of this Albom controversy...

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/11362329.htm

<snip>

Albom is making news rather than reporting it, under suspension from the Detroit Free Press until the newspaper completes an investigation of a fabrication in an Albom column that ran last Sunday.

What Albom did was write a column as if his two interview subjects were at the Michigan State-North Carolina NCAA tournament Final Four game in St. Louis on April 2. In earlier interviews, former Michigan State players Jason Richardson and Mateen Cleaves told Albom they planned to attend the game, but they did not.

Filing on Friday for a section that was printed by Saturday morning, several hours before the game, Albom wrote, and copy editors did not change, that Richardson and Cleaves had flown in for the game and were in the stands wearing Michigan State clothing.

It turned out schedule conflicts kept both players from attending the game.

more...

[madaboutharry]

1. This kind of stuff happens all the time.

It is the "deadline" that pushes writers to write in the future tense. This is why there are editors.