Journalists Behaving Badly
Two bizarre stories of prominent journalists screwing up.
In the first,
Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom—yes, he of
Tuesdays with Morrie fame—wrote a column on Friday for publication Sunday in which he described events that were supposed to have happened Saturday. (Got that?) The only problem is the events didn't happen, and the Free Press is now
looking into the matter.
This is an old newspaper trick. I remember, almost 20 years ago, as an intern at the
New Republic, reading a wire service copy of a column by a famous columnist (who shall remain nameless, just in case memory betrays) about what she did on New Year's Eve. The only problem was that I was reading the column on December 30th.
As Bill Maher would say, new rule: Journalists can't write columns about things that supposedly happened until
after they've happened.
But this would explain why
Tuesdays with Morrie always felt a little too perfectly sentimental....
Second bizarre story:
The New York Times has fired Susan Sachs, its Iraq bureau chief, after she allegeldy sent incriminating letters and e-mails to the wives of correspondents John Burns and Dexter Filkins, detailing alleged infidelity on the part of those two men.
You have to read this story to believe it.
And as for the idea of war correspondents with bad marriages? I'm shocked. Shocked.
