|
7/3/03-
Earth Calling Mitch...
Surely you've seen
this guy around somewhere. He's Mitch Albom, award winning sports
columnist, radio personality, and author. Get a good look
because there is one place you won't
be seeing or hearing from him this summer. The Detroit Free
Press has reported that Mitch will resist appearing as a witness in
the federal trial of former Michigan basketball player Chris Webber.
What Does Mitch Know and When Did He Know It?
At issue apparently are a few passages in Mitch's 1993 book, Fab
Five, ostensibly a work of nonfiction.
From the dustcover: ...Chronicled by the man acclaimed
repeatedly as the nation's top sportwriter...FAB FIVE is more than a
sports book. It's book about fame and youth in America.
It's about race. Money. Broken promises. And
friendship.
In the book Mitch
writes about how broke Chris Webber was during his college career.
He relates a version of the same old story that Chris has told to a
number of other reporters. I was at [insert fast food
restaurant name] and I didn't have enough money for lunch. And
then I saw my jersey being sold in a sport shop and thought about
all the money that was being made off of me- page 214, Fab
Five.
There other interesting tales in the book. Like about how Mayce Webber
turned down financial inducements of up to $150K to convince Chris
to attend certain high schools and colleges. Even Banned
Booster Ed Martin makes an appearance, "...One friend, a slickly
dressed former autoworker named Ed Martin- known by some as "that
gambler who kept a wad of bills stuffed inside his sock"- would
attach himself to kids like Chris and Jalen..." Page 44, Fab Five.
Martin is portrayed as a booster who used cash, baked goods, and
liquor to get kids to attend Southwestern High School, where Perry
Watson coached before working at Michigan.
Considering Martin's
high profile in the program and history of suspicious contact with
athletes it doesn't seem like such a stretch of the imagination to
conclude that he would continue to provide benefits to players when
they enrolled at Michigan. At the very least someone known as a gambler
hanging around Chris Webber and Jalen Rose should have caused alarms bells to go off.
Did such a thing ever to occur to Mitch Albom? We'll never know.
It certainly appears that the Detroit Free Press will do everything in
its power to keep Albom from testifying in court about what he did or
didn't see.
The Intersection of Journalism and Entertainment
The Free Press
argues that as a reporter Mitch Albom does not need to testify.
"We aren't in the business of providing expert witnesses for everyone
who would like to use the credibility of a journalist for their own
purposes," Fink said. "The courts are sensitive to this problem and
have created a privilege for journalists."
Fink said journalists' credibility as independent observers of the
news is compromised severely when they are made to appear as witnesses
for the government or defendants in criminal trials or for parties in
civil suits.
Added Free Press Executive Editor Carole Leigh Hutton: "If journalists
can be forced to testify about what they observe in the course of
reporting for the newspaper, people are less likely to trust them for
the next story, and the next story and the next story. It compromises
the whole process." Detroit Free Press July 2, 2003.
Excuse me but they
really can't expect for a sports writer to have the same kind of
protections that a journalist working a murder investigation might
have. No one will be put in danger by Mitch's testimony.
The only thing that might take a hit is his credibility.
Newspaper sports
pages have more in common with entertainment than legitimate news
reporting especially in the Detroit Free Press which harbors such
talents as Drew "don't let the facts cloud the issue" Sharp.
When is the last time you've ever seen a retraction or clarification
for a previous story run in a sports page? This is that same
paper that printed a column where Sharp stated that
Lloyd Carr refused to
shake hands with former MSU coach Bobby Williams despite photos that
showed otherwise. So while the Free Press refuses to hold
its sports writing to same level of accuracy as it does for its more serious
reporting, it now wants the same protection afforded to its
sportswriters that serious journalists have. I don't think
that's right.
If Mitch was still a
serious journalist (was he ever?) he'd be working on a update for Fab
Five or maybe an entirely new book called Fab Fraud instead of
ignoring the growing pile of evidence that one of the worst scandals in the
history of the NCAA was sitting right under his nose.
And he completely
missed it...
Accountability
What bothers me
the most is that there seems to be double standard in the area of
sports reporting. Reporters gets excused for not asking the
'tough' questions but then want the benefits of being consider
serious journalists when it suits them. When the Ed Martin
scandal started break many people used "Fab Five" as a reason to not
believe it. How could the top sports writer in America spend
so much time researching and writing about Michigan basketball and
not uncover such a huge scandal?
The answer may be
found in "Fab Five" itself. Mitch talks about the world of
sports journalism "...Editors often assign pieces with a
preconceived notion...Reporters, with limited time and budgets, often
settle for telling an already told tale in their own words...." Pages
293-294, Fab Five. Is this what happened when Mitch sat down
to write his book? Was he bound and determined to show the Fab
Five as being taken advantage of by the NCAA? Did his close
relationship with Michigan sports cloud his judgment?
Fans can't ask these
questions. We rely on professional journalists to do this.
And when they fail to do their jobs there must be repercussions
Earth to Mitch...What Were You Thinking?
It's
interesting sportswriters make living criticizing the performance of
other people. But when it comes time for one of them to have
their work scrutinized they hide
behind journalist privilege. I guess we'll all just have to be
satisfied with a "no comment" from Mitch Albom on what he
knew about Ed Martin...
Go Blue!
Phil
Callihan
UMGoBlue.COM, Editor-in-Chief
phil@umgoblue.com
|
Phil Callihan is the Editor-in- Chief of
UMGoBlue.COM. Phil graduated from the University of Michigan
in 1993 and has been a football season ticket holder since 1994.
Full Bio
Read More of Phil's Columns
|
