By Joel Thurtell
Who the bleep is Mitch Albom?
Oh, I know, he’s the highly-paid Detroit Free Press sports guru who writes opinions about everything under the sun.
Kind of like me, except for the sports and being highly-paid.
I was startled by Mitch’s column in the May 17, 2009 Freep condemning the American Civil Liberties Union for suing the government to release photos of American GIs abusing prisoners.
Mitch is outraged at the thought.
“Who the bleep is the ACLU?” he thunders.
Mitch makes the same argument Detroit’s former mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, made last year as he sought to stop reporters from Mitch’s Free Press from having the infamous text messages released.
Who the bleep IS Mitch Albom?
Well, we can define him by who he is not.
He may be a highly-paid writer, but he is no reporter.
Any reporter worth his or her salt would, by Mitch’s age in the business, have written and submitted more than one request for documents under the state and federal freedom of information acts.
If so, he would have heard the very argument he makes for not releasing abuse photos, because it’s the standard eyewash governments put out when they try to protect their hind ends.
The stock government line: Somebody somewhere might get hurt if we release these documents, photos, whatever.
A real reporter would know that the somebody who might get hurt are the same gatekeepers to knowledge who have the power to suppress.
Governments are not worried about grunts in the field getting shot by terrorists. That’s what they think grunts are for.
A few lowly GIs were tried and convicted after the release of abuse photos taken at the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Luckily for the high muck-a-mucks, the fervor for punishment didn’t run up the feeding chain to those who set the stage for torture. That’s what they want grunts for.
We now know that abuse was not only tolerated, it was encouraged by the highest levels of U.S. burueaucracy, by which I mean the White House itself.
Too many big shots have gotten off with no punishment — people like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. Lawyers and bureaucrats in the middle levels have fared well, too. They certainly wouldn’t want this whole affair of officially-sponsored torture to be raked over again in the domestic press. Why, that might lead to more and more powerful calls for justice. Who knows, one or two of them might actually be tried for war crimes.
That is the real reason government officials cringe at thought of more damning photos being released. It could be the tip of the iceberg. It could lead to releases of more proof of awful behavior by American authorities. Knowledge is power, and it could turn into a whiplash that smacks current custodians as well as past.
Mitch wouldn’t understand that because, as I mentioned, he’s a writer, not a reporter.
Who the bleep is Mitch?
He’s the leading auteur on a once powerful newspaper that often preaches free speech values, and whose leading and best-paid writer is all for censorship.
No problem for Mitch. Censorship is the name of his game.
A few years ago, the Free Press commissioned a free lance writer to review a book by Mitch. It was quite a first, given the Free Press policy of not reviewing books by its own employees. But the paper broke with tradition that one time and commissioned a review of Mitch’s book.
Something about that review irked the Sage of Franklin.
He objected, and the offending article was spiked.
Censorship. It’s the sub rosa theme of Mitch’s sermon today.
Terrorism?
A red herring.
This one is all about power, who’s on top, who gets to call the shots.
A few years ago, Mitch was hauling down 2oo grand in salary from the Free Press, not to mention his earnings from radio, TV, books, movies.
A grunt he is not.
Mitch called the shot when he bullied editors into spiking a review of his book.
Grunts don’t get to do that. Rich guys with power do.
Mitch is kind of like those upper-level officers and bureaucrats trying to save their hides by spiking abuse photos.
I’m with the ACLU. We should see those abuse photos.
If that leads to bigger fish, good.
We should try Bush, Cheny, Rumsfeld and a host of other miscreants as war criminals.
Would that bother Mitch?
Doggone — I wish I could have read that review of his book!
Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com
Well-said, Joel. And news you’ll welcome:
Carlo Wolff”s review of The Five People You Meet in Heaven — which says “Albom seems content to write the Great American Postcard” and which then-executive editor Carol Leigh Hutton spiked — ran in Metro Times on Oct. 8, 2003 and is online here:
http://metrotimes.com/arts/review.asp?rid=21034
Also, for your nostalgic enjoyment, the link below is to a week-later column by Jack Lessemnberry . . . who reported:
. . . Here’s that Lessenberry quote, which I miscoded into disappearing:
I totally agree with you! Money seems to change people like Albom, and not in a good way. What a hypocrite! And, as you say, he is NOT a reporter.
Nice blog, Joel. FWIW, to this day I do not know whether Mitch saw the review before it was spiked. I was the book critic then, but not the editor of the page.