Albom disciplined for filing bogus Final Four column

DETROIT -- Best-selling author Mitch Albom and four other employees of the Detroit Free Press were disciplined after an investigation prompted by an Albom column, the newspaper said in a letter to readers in Saturday's paper.

The column contained errors and purported to describe events at a game even though it was written before it took place.

Albom will resume writing for the Free Press, according to the letter written by Carole Leigh Hutton, the newspaper's editor and publisher. Albom's work has not appeared since an April 7 column in which he discussed the problems and apologized to readers.

Hutton's letter did not identify the other four employees, but said that Albom and the four each had a role in putting the column into the paper and had the responsibility to fix errors before the column was published. The letter also did not describe the disciplinary action taken.

"We took into account many factors, including the seriousness of the offense, the importance of our credibility, the history of those involved and Albom's 20 stellar years at the Free Press," Hutton said in the letter announcing that the paper had completed its internal review. "We now look forward to that work continuing in the Free Press."

Albom, host of a nationally syndicated radio talk show and author of the best-selling books Tuesdays With Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven, reported in a column April 3 that former Michigan State players Mateen Cleaves and Jason Richardson attended the Michigan State-North Carolina NCAA semifinal on April 2.

He had reported that the players "sat in the stands, in their MSU clothing, and rooted on their alma mater." Neither player was at the game.

Albom said he wrote the column before the game took place, as if the events already had happened, based on what the players had told him they planned to do. The paper said the players' plans changed after they were interviewed.

The column had to be filed on a Friday afternoon -- a day before the game -- but appeared in the paper the following Sunday, Albom said. The paper said the section in which the column appeared was printed before the game.

The investigation was first announced in a letter addressed to readers from Hutton and published on the paper's front page.

Hutton said in her letter to readers in Saturday's paper that more about the investigation would be published by the Free Press later.

"We also think it's important to report on ourselves and our transgressions in the same way we would report on the institutions we write about regularly. So, reporting is continuing on a story that will be published as soon as it is ready," she wrote.