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Even the dark times bring enlightenment
Jewish World Review ^ | 5/3/05 | Mitch Albom

Posted on 05/03/2005 12:58:21 PM PDT by Caleb1411

I try not to bother G-d too often, but I do sometimes ask Him for grace, to lend me some when I need to display it. I admit to asking now.

The last three weeks have been the darkest yet most enlightening of my professional life. The dark part is obvious. I made a careless mistake in a column. It wasn't malicious. It didn't harm the subjects. But it was factually incorrect in four paragraphs. I assumed something would happen that didn't. That was wrong.

I apologized to my bosses. We were going to run a correction. Then we decided to go further. I apologized on the front page of the sports section, something unprecedented, but indicative that we took it seriously.

And then, as Dick Enberg says, "Oh my!"

A volcano erupted. An explosion that mixed the criticism I deserved with a lava flow of anger, hate, self-righteousness and people who once called themselves friends preferring to act as my judge and jury.

I went from sorry, to shocked, to saddened, to silent. I didn't want to lash out. I felt terrible for the mistake, terrible that my newspaper had to take heat, terrible that my editors were besieged.

Time passed. Lumps were taken. And people moved on. I have been slow to return to this column because a lot has been said and done, and a lot seems changed. The boundless joy I always felt for this newspaper business has been socked in the stomach.

But I have tried, in recent years, to see a lesson in everything, because when the smoke clears, there usually is one. It turns out there were quite a few here.

If I ever wanted to learn what it was like to be an athlete or coach with people screaming for your head,

(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: mitchalbom

1 posted on 05/03/2005 12:58:26 PM PDT by Caleb1411
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To: Caleb1411
I made a careless mistake in a column.

But Mitch it wasn't a careless mistake, it was a deliberate fabrication. Your mea culpae just aren't cutting it.

2 posted on 05/03/2005 1:05:55 PM PDT by Rummyfan
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To: Rummyfan; rhema; BibChr
the original column

Albom's apology

The Free Press's comment on the investigation

3 posted on 05/03/2005 1:10:38 PM PDT by Caleb1411
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To: Caleb1411

Honestly, I read the three article you posted and I don't see the big deal. He apologized. It seems like a tempest in a teapot.


4 posted on 05/03/2005 1:16:12 PM PDT by Junior (“Even if you are one-in-a-million, there are still 6,000 others just like you.”)
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To: Caleb1411

Telling a lie is not the same as making a mistake. Getting caught, in this case, was his mistake. He's still a liar, though.


5 posted on 05/03/2005 3:28:04 PM PDT by gcruse (http://gcruse.typepad.com/)
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