Mitch Albom
Mitchell David Albom (born May 23, 1958) is an American author, journalist, and musician. His books have sold over 39 million copies[2] worldwide. Having achieved national recognition for sports writing in his early career, he is perhaps best known for the inspirational stories and themes that weave through his books, plays, and films. Albom lives with his wife Janine Sabino in Detroit.[3]
Albom was born on May 23, 1958, to a Jewish family[4] in Passaic, New Jersey. He lived in Buffalo, New York for a little while until his family settled in Oaklyn, New Jersey, just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He grew up in a small, middle-class neighborhood which most people never left. Albom was once quoted as saying that his parents were very supportive, and always used to say, “Don’t expect your life to finish here. There’s a big world out there. Go out and see it.” His older sister, younger brother and he himself all took that message to heart and traveled extensively. His siblings are currently settled in Europe.[citation needed] [5]
While living in New York, Albom developed an interest in journalism. Still supporting himself by working nights in the music industry, he began to write during the day for the Queens Tribune, a weekly newspaper in Flushing, New York. His work there helped earn him entry into the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. During his time there, to help pay his tuition he took work as a babysitter. In addition to nighttime piano playing, Albom took a part-time job with SPORT magazine.[6] Upon graduation, he freelanced in that field for publications such as Sports Illustrated, GEO, and The Philadelphia Inquirer,[7] and covered several Olympic sports events in Europe – including track and field and luge – paying his own way for travel, and selling articles once he was there. In 1983, he was hired as a full-time feature writer for The Fort Lauderdale News and Sun Sentinel, and eventually promoted to columnist. In 1985, having won that year’s Associated Press Sports Editors award for best Sports News Story, Albom was hired as lead sports columnist for the Detroit Free Press to replace Mike Downey, a popular columnist who had taken a job with the Los Angeles Times.[8]
Albom’s sports column quickly became popular. In 1989, when the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News merged weekend publications, Albom was asked to add a weekly non-sports column to his duties. That column ran on Sundays in the “Comment” section and dealt with American life and values. It was eventually syndicated across the country. Both columns continue today in the Detroit Free Press.[9]
During his years in Detroit, he became one of the most award-winning sports writers of his era. He was named best sports columnist in the nation a record 13 times by the Associated Press Sports Editors and won best feature writing honors from that same organization a record seven times. No other writer has received the award more than once.[10] He has won more than 200 other writing honors from organizations including the National Headliner Awards, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, and National Association of Black Journalists. On June 25, 2010, Albom was awarded the APSE’s Red Smith Award for lifetime achievement, presented at the annual APSE convention in Salt Lake City, Utah. The selection was heavily criticized by a number of Albom’s peers, including fellow Red Smith Award winner Dave Kindred.[11][12][13][14] In 2013, Albom was inducted into the National Sports Media Association (formerly the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association) Hall of Fame[15] and his induction into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame was announced May 2017.[16] Many of his columns have been collected into anthology books including Live Albom I (Detroit Free Press, 1988), Live Albom II (Detroit Free Press, 1990), Live Albom III (Detroit Free Press, 1992), and Live Albom IV (Detroit Free Press, 1995).
Albom also serves as a contributing editor to Parade magazine.[17] His column is syndicated by Tribune Content Agency.[18]
In 2005, Albom and four editors were briefly suspended from the Detroit Free Press after Albom wrote a column that stated that two college basketball players were in the crowd at an NCAA tournament game when in fact they were not.[19] In a column printed in the April 3, 2005, edition, Albom described two former Michigan State basketball players, both then in the NBA, attending an NCAA Final Four semifinal game on Saturday to cheer for their school. The players had told Albom they planned to attend, so Albom, filing on his normal Friday deadline but knowing the column could not come out until Sunday (after the game was over) wrote that the players were there. But the players’ plans changed at the last minute and they did not attend the game. The Detroit Free Press also suspended the four editors who had read the column and allowed it to go to print. Albom was in attendance at the game, but the columnist failed to check on the two players’ presence. A later internal investigation found no other similar instances in Albom’s past columns, but did cite an editorial-wide problem of routinely using unattributed quotes from other sources.[20] Carol Leigh Hutton, publisher of the Detroit Free Press at the time of the scandal, later told Buzzfeed that she regretted the way it was handled. “It was a stupid mistake that Mitch made that others failed to catch but not at all indicative of some problem that required the response we gave it. I allowed myself to believe that we were doing this highly credible, highly transparent thing, when really in hindsight what I think we were doing was acquiescing to people who were taking advantage of a stupid mistake.”[21]
