Wrath at a writer

Thanks to David Shaw for an interesting piece on Mitch Albom [“How One Careless Act Became a Really Big Deal,” April 24]. It raised interesting points to think about, such as “pre-writing” and lax copy editing for columnists of high stature.

I slightly disagree with Shaw about Albom’s fate at the Free Press. I think he should have been fired automatically for what he did. His telling readers that Cleaves and Richardson were at the game, when they in fact weren’t, was a fabrication of the same type as Jayson Blair’s and Stephen Glass’.

The fact that Albom is a celebrity shouldn’t entitle him to special rights. In fact, his celebrity status and well-read columns should have made him more careful about what to write. I am sure another columnist, someone perhaps less known, would have been fired on the spot. I believe Albom should be too.

Slav Kandyba

Bucyrus, Ohio

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It could certainly be argued that people have come down on Mitch Albom harder than they otherwise might have because he’s a multimedia darling, rather than some Joe Six-Pack columnist ripping the Tigers and Lions three times a week, but it’s very likely because he’s not that kind of columnist that this debacle occurred in the first place.

As was reported in The Times, Albom, a superstar at the Free Press, was held to a different standard. So if he was writing about something that hadn’t happened yet, a typical copy editor wouldn’t flag it, as that just wasn’t done, or not often enough. I can only imagine how intimidating it might’ve been for even a senior editor to call Albom up and question the wisdom of his phrasing.

I take issue with the fact that Shaw thinks he should be spared the ax because he was not a serial abuser. In effect, what appeared in the Free Press on that fateful Sunday was fiction. Did Albom intend for that to be the case? Of course not. Nonetheless, he put himself in that position. He doesn’t have to sink to the level of Jayson Blair. He can, instead, be coupled with Janet Cooke. She only did it once. That was enough.

Steve Gosset

Tarrytown, N.Y.