It’s one of those moments both parties wish didn’t have to happen. It’s somber. Downbeat. Sometimes tearful.

But never encouraging.

For 22 seconds last weekend, that changed. In a press conference immediately after his team’s tough 27-23 playoff loss to Buffalo, the coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Liam Coen, took a question from a native Detroit woman named Lynn Jones, now a white-haired, 64-year-old associate editor of the Jacksonville Free Press.

It wasn’t really a question.

“I just want to tell you, congratulations on your success, young man,” Jones said. “You hold your head up, all right? You guys have had a most magnificent season. You did a great job out there today. You just hold your head up, OK? Ladies and gentlemen, Duval (County), you’re the one. You keep it going. We got another season, OK? Take care and much continued success to you and the entire team.”

As she spoke, Coen mumbled “thank you” and “appreciate it.” Near the end, he even pushed up a smile.

But not everyone was smiling.

A pretty sad state

The exchange went viral after an ESPN reporter posted it and called it “awesome.” And of course, once anything is posted, the world has to weigh in.

While many fans gave a thumbs-up, some reporters decried the moment as unprofessional, including one who wrote, “Uplifting the head coach after a loss is not part of a sports reporter’s job.” Another wrote, “Reporters should be in PR if they want to carry on like this.”

An AP reporter called it “embarrassing for the people who credentialed her” and “a waste of time for those of us actually working.”

These sentiments were met with a barrage of criticism from the other side, including media-haters, media critics, and former athletes like Pat McAfee, who posted: “Love seeing these sports ‘journalists’ getting ABSOLUTELY BURIED for being curmudgeon bums.”

Now, McAfee, a former punter who makes around $17 million a year from ESPN and pays quarterback Aaron Rodgers over $1 million to appear on his show, doesn’t live the life of a typical sports media member.

And, no, that one reporter wasn’t wrong, uplifting losing coaches is generally not part of the media’s job.

On the other hand, if we’ve reached the point where someone being kind to someone else — for 22 seconds — is worth damning them publicly, we’re in a pretty sad state.

‘Like an auntie’

So I reached out to Jones, who, it turns out, grew up by Livernois and Warren, “near the White Castle,” and used to walk to Tiger Stadium as a kid.

“I lived in Detroit until I was 30 years old,” she told me. “Then we went to Jacksonville Beach on a vacation and oh my God, we had the most magnificent time.”

After her father passed away, Jones said, “he left me a check” and she quickly moved to Jacksonville full time. One of her first jobs there was working for the Jaguars, so she has a history with the team. She later went into journalism and now writes and is associate editor for the Jacksonville Free Press, a weekly newspaper and one of several hundred serving Black communities in the United States.

“Now that I think about it, the room did get a little quiet. I know some people feel I should have asked a question. But is there a protocol? I didn’t get a sheet telling me I can’t say congratulations.”

Jones said she knew something was up when moments later she got a nice text from a colleague who said, “You sounded like an auntie.” Then more texts followed. Then her phone blew up.

Next thing she knew, she was doing interviews across the country.

And today, if you go to the Jacksonville Free Press’ website, they are selling T-shirts with her words on it, with the profits, they say, going to scholarships.

Making room for kindness

Since this happened, I’ve been asked many times for my opinion, perhaps because I’ve been in postgame press conferences for more than 40 years.

Well, T-shirts aside, I’d say both sides need to lighten up. What Jones did was kind, empathetic and uplifting, and I refuse to find fault with anything described by those three words.

Was it normal? No. Did it belong in a “media” conference? Probably not.

Then again, the nastiness that marks virtually every White House press conference these days doesn’t belong there either. But we seem to be tolerating it. And if we’re willing to tolerate such ugliness, why not make room for some unusual sweetness?

At the same time, critics like McAfee jumping all over sports reporters is also inappropriate. They don’t, as McAfee suggested, hate sports. Quite the contrary. They likely got into the field because they love sports.

But the people who populate sports today — players, coaches, general managers, owners — frequently hate the media. They insult them. Blow them off. Treat them disrespectfully. Lump them as “you guys.”

And for the most part, the media tolerates it. Silently. Dutifully. Begrudgingly. That’s no fun, either.

So both sides could take a lesson from Jones, who is merrily cruising through all this, knowing that when you’re on the side of kindness and optimism, you don’t have anything to be ashamed of.

“People have been calling me fake media,” she said. “I haven’t even responded to that.”

Nor should she have to. After all, it was a guy named Grantland Rice, who, more than 100 years ago, penned the phrase “Wait until next year.”

He was a sportswriter.

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates on his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow @mitchalbom on x.com.

The shelves weren’t empty. There was plenty to choose. What we meant by “nothing to eat” was nothing we wanted to eat.

Which brings us to the American diet.

Last week, the Department of Agriculture released a fresh set of guidelines for what we should and shouldn’t consume. It contained a new “food pyramid,” a relic from the last century in which recommended foods make up the wide part and foods to be minimalized make up the narrow point.

This new pyramid flipped the script from pyramids past. The one from the 1990s recommended grains and starches — including bread, cereal and pasta — as the highest intake, with fats and oils at the bottom.

The 2026 version puts protein, dairy, healthy fats and vegetables at the top, and grains in the basement.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new Health and Human Services secretary, apparently had major input on this list. He told the media it represented “the most significant reset of federal nutrition policy in history.”

Maybe. But when I read it, it only confirms what I have long believed:

Nothing generates more opinions in this country than what you should eat.

A generational thing

Remember the Woody Allen film “Annie Hall” where he says, “Everything our parents said was good is bad. Sun, milk, red meat … college.”

That’s kind of how it is with food. Every generation has its strong beliefs about what’s good for you, and the next generation says: “You’re nuts.”

(Speaking of nuts, they used to be down there with fish and poultry, but now those two have jumped to the top and nuts are down with bananas and cereal. Go figure.)

Our grandparents used to tell us we should eat red meat every day. A glass of milk before bed was good for you. Potatoes were a vegetable.

Then came all kinds of fad diets. A grapefruit diet. A raw food diet. For a while, everyone was supposed to eat low-fat, high-carb foods. Then everyone was supposed to eat low-carb, high-fat foods.

Ted Nugent swears by eating red meat every day, but only the kind he kills and cleans himself. Other folks eat only vegetables — no meat, no dairy, not even fish. Certain doctors claim moderation of all foods is enough. Others say your gut is your second brain.

The contradictions from place to place and person to person can give you a stomachache. Grains are good; grains are bad. Have yogurt every day; ugh, dairy is terrible for you. Cheese is great, look at the French; cheese is terrible, look at pizza eaters.

Whole milk is awful; oat milk is worse. Chocolate is a no-no; dark chocolate is healthy. Fats make you fat; fats are a key to brain health. Coffee makes you nervous; a cup a day is better than none. An apple a day makes you sick from pectin.  

In the United States, EAT should stand for Every Available Thought.

When junk food wins out

So now we have a new pyramid, and some folks are up in arms about it. They say Kennedy is a crazy man. How can meat and milk be good for you? How can moderation with alcohol be better than a firm limit? How can butter be a “healthy” fat?

And lost in all of this is that the majority of Americans are still like our kid selves by the refrigerator: all these recommendations and nothing we want to eat.

So instead, we go for junk. We shop in the “snacks” aisle. We grab fast food. Why is it that with all this eating advice, all this information, all the science and manufacturing that has gone into “healthy food” research and development, Americans are consuming more processed foods than ever?

Because we want what we want. We ignore the advice. Or maybe we just get too confused by the contradictions.

In which case, one clear conclusion by the new report is dead on target: Stop consuming things like potato chips, pork rinds, processed meats and pop.

Stop with the sugary drinks and doughnuts for breakfast. Knock off the peanut-butter pretzels, the ice cream cones, the fried everything.

If Americans did nothing but that, health would dramatically improve, the cost of medical care would drop, and no one would have to worry about how many avocados we ate every day.

But food is big business, and when you put profit and health in the same ring, health usually gets knocked out.

So we go on arguing, and maybe 100 years from now, we’ll find out that French fries and Cool Whip were actually the best things for our bodies.

Until then, I’m waiting for a pyramid that says: “Never eat any food advertised during a football game.”

It would be so much easier to keep track.

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates on his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow @mitchalbom on x.com.

Beneath its branches were gifts of various sizes, marked with cards to identity their contents. One expensively-wrapped gift read: “Prosperity.” Another flashing one read: “Technology.” There was a huge blue package that simply said “AVATAR.”

But one small box caught my eye. It was open. The wrapping paper had been ripped away. The top was off. Inside, I saw the box was empty, as if its contents had been dumped out.

I picked up a fallen card, torn in half.

It read: “Civility.”

Just then, I heard a small bang. I ran across the room and saw Civility itself trying to open the window.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Haven’t you heard?” Civility said. “I’m out of style. Out of touch. So I’m outta here.”

I watched it try to undo the window latch. Unfortunately, like most nouns, Civility didn’t have hands.

“Ummph,” it grunted. “How does this thing work?”

“I’ll get it,” I said.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Civility smiled. “See? Was that so hard? Saying ‘You’re welcome?’ ”

I thought for a moment. I closed the lock.

“I thought you were going to help me,” Civility said.

“First, can I ask why you’re leaving?”

“May you ask?’

“Yes. May I ask why you’re leaving.”

Civility sighed. Politely. But a sigh just the same.

Times are tough for Civility ― and civility

“Once,” Civility said, “I was the belle of the Christmas ball. It was the time of year when I shone the brightest. People were polite. They were kind and charitable. They went door to door caroling. And even if the carolers were slightly off key, the neighbors always smiled.”

“And today?” I asked.

“Today, they check their Ring cameras, and if it’s not an Amazon delivery, they threaten to call the police. Or they yell “Porch Pirate!”

“Hmm,” I said. “Well, surely people are more civil outside the home?”

“Where?” Civility asked. “The workplace? People are so nasty in the workplace, emails should come with detonation instructions.”

“What about the shopping mall?”

“Have you ever seen two desperate parents when there’s only one Star Wars Lego set left?”

“How about online?”

“Social media?” Civility shook its head as best it could, since nouns don’t have necks. “Have you ever read the reaction when an overweight person posts a photo in Christmas sweater? Santa Claus doesn’t have a naughty list long enough for those responses! It’s so bad that —”

“But you can’t just —” I stopped. “Sorry. I interrupted you.”

“No, please, go right ahead,” Civility said.

“Really?”

“I insist.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“It’s what I do.”

“Right. Anyhow, you can’t just walk out on us. How would we talk to each other? What would America be if it gave up on civil discourse?”

“I’m afraid,” Civility said, “that ship has sailed …”

A heck of a virtue

Civility waved its arm, or whatever passes as an arm on a noun. And the walls turned into a mural of rude, insensitive and downright mean moments from 2025. There was a football game between the University of Colorado and Brigham Young where the Colorado student section yelled slurs against Mormons. There were reality TV shows where the contestants consistently berated each other. And there was an entire wall devoted to the President Donald Trump, yelling “Piggy” at a reporter, berating the Ukrainian president for not being grateful enough and posting that Rob and Michelle Reiner’s murder by their son was somehow due to their “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

Civility shrugged. “Like I said, I’m out of style.”

With that, Civility slid under the closed window frame and tumbled out into the snow. I ran outside, to find it shivering and gasping for breath.

I gathered it up, took it inside and warmed it by the fire. In time, Civility began to glow.

“Thank you,” it said, leaning back into the couch. “I didn’t realize it was so cold out there. I’ve never tried to run away before.”

“Listen,” I said. “If we promised to try and remember our manners, would you consider getting back in the gift box?”

“I don’t know …”

“You are a gift to this country.”

“Well,” Civility said, “America did used to value me. Heck, even the early civics classes in this country were about me.”

It leaned in. “Sorry about the word ‘heck.’ ”

“No problem,” I said.

Civility sneezed.

“God bless you,” I said.

Civility slowly smiled. It rose from the couch, walked back to the box, and pulled the cover over its head.

“God bless you, too,” it said.

And as I taped up the wrapping paper and replaced the bow, I heard a voice from inside say, “If you don’t mind, could you place me next to Technology? I want to discuss this TikTok thing …”

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates on his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow @mitchalbom on x.com.

And when you consider the talent that once sprinted up and down that court — from Dave Bing to Magic Johnson to Earl Cureton to Jalen Rose — you can feel yourself start to sweat.

This place is called St. Cecilia’s — or to many, the Saint — a legendary part of Detroit’s history, but like too many parts of our city, one that has fallen into disrepair, decay and disregard.

That is about to change.

On Thursday, Dec. 11, during our annual SAY Detroit Radiothon, I was joined on stage by the current mayor of Detroit, Mike Duggan, the former mayor, Dave Bing, and — via telephone — the current Mayor-elect Mary Sheffield (who was on her honeymoon), all of whom came together to help me announce the revitalization of a city landmark.

St. Cecilia’s, its adjacent 25-room school building, and the areas and lots surrounding both, will soon be the site of the new SAY Detroit Play Center at St. Cecilia’s.

The 8-acre campus on the city’s west side will be home to hundreds of afterschool kids from around the city, featuring academic labs, STEM robotics, arts programs, community spaces and, of course, sports, from a brand new football field to a rebirthed basketball facility that will honor the greats who played on that hardwood, while transforming it to a state-of-the-art level.

The Saint is rising.

A beacon of collaboration

“I am so excited,” Sheffield said, when she heard the news. “These are the partnerships that I believe are extremely important. And my husband — I finally can say that — he grew up playing in St. Cecilia’s. It’s very near and dear to the community. … It’s near and dear to my heart.”

This is admittedly an ambitious project, one that may cost, in the end, close to $10 million. As the founder of SAY Detroit, that would make me nervous, had we not done a similar thing over the last decade on the city’s east side, at another abandoned facility called the Lipke Rec Center.

Although not as storied by NBA greats as St. Cecilia’s, Lipke was also once a home to many Detroit kids, who played sports and swam there from the 1950s through the early 2000s.

But like so many rec centers in Detroit, Lipke closed during the bankruptcy years and fell into decay.

Back in 2014, Mayor Duggan asked SAY Detroit if we could somehow find a use for one of those closed facilities. We visited many and finally chose Lipke, even though all the HVAC equipment had been stolen off the roof and the swimming pool was covered in mold.

Ten years later, through the amazing enthusiasm — and elbow grease — of community partners and volunteers, Lipke has been transformed it into a vibrant hive of activity. There’s a football field donated by Matthew Stafford, a baseball field donated by the Detroit Tigers and a large basketball court, rejuvenated by Tom Gores, owner of the Pistons. Stafford and other investors added a 15,000-square-foot education annex a few years ago.

The SAY Detroit Play Center at Lipke now serves 300 kids from all over the city, who are transported from their schools and taken back home when they are finished. Sure, kids can play sports — but only after they complete 90 minutes of study in our digital learning center. They also fan out, in even greater numbers, to a recording studio, an E-Gaming hub, and STEM robotics and arts and dance programs.

Blueprint for success

Our goal for St Cecilia’s is follow the blueprint we used at Lipke. The sizes aren’t the same — there is less acreage the second time, for example, yet a larger school building — but the philosophy will be consistent: involve the community, lean on those who loved and used to use the space, raise funds through partnerships with foundations, companies and individuals, transport kids safely to and from their schools and homes, and hire caring, dedicated people to direct the academics and recreation.

We have already gathered several million dollars toward this project, chiefly from the Wayne and Joan Webber Foundation and an anonymous, but large, donor. Gores also pledged $100,000 toward it at Thursday’s event.

We should note that others have dreamed of reinvigorating this storied place, including Bing, Rose and notably Cureton, the former Piston, who, as a teenager, used to take two busses just to play with the talent at St. Cecilia’s.

On Thursday, at the radiothon, Earl’s widow, Judith Pickop, and their daughter, Sari, sat with us when we made the announcement.

“My dad loved Detroit and I think that reflected in his love for St. Cecilia’s,” Sari said. “The city offered him so much … an opportunity to grow, to learn, and become the person he became.”

That will be the goal of this new facility. To grow. To learn. To become the person you can become.

And to touch history. Detroit history. It was fun to hear Bing recall how, during a holdout from the Pistons in the early 1970s, he kept his game sharp by playing at St. Cecilia’s, and how Sam Washington, the legendary athletic director there, convinced him to get the NBA to donate the fines he was accumulating so he could buy a new scoreboard.

It was fun to hear former Police Chief Ike McKinnon recall how, during the uprising-plagued year of 1967, his officers would get stress reduction and recreation at St. Cecilia’s and how Washington would feed them.

Mayor Duggan noted how our Lipke project had not only revitalized that facility, but sent property values in the area soaring, and uplifted the immediate neighborhood.

We hope to do that twice.

There are ghosts now in the paint-peeling walls. We will not chase them out. Rather, we will give them a home among the sudden high-pitched squeals of children enjoying new facilities, and families knowing their kids have a place to go for hours after school and in the summer, a place where they can improve their grades, their college chances and their jump shots.

The Saint is rising.

If you would like to be a part of this effort, or join us somehow in the rebirth, please contact us at Saydetroit.org.

History never dies. It just sometimes gets ignored. That ends now at St. Cecilia’s. Let’s make it front and center again.

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom on x.com.

For two hours.

“Absolutely!” I responded. In my mind I thought, Two hours! They must be expecting 500 people!

I was off by … 500 people.

Nobody came. I sat there all alone. I fidgeted at a table, checking my watch, trying not to look like the loser I felt I was.

Finally, about an hour into this torture, a middle-aged woman entered the store and approached me. I flushed with excitement. Finally, a sale! We made eye contact. We smiled at each other. And then …

“Where are the cookbooks?” she asked.

“I don’t work here,” I answered.

“Oh.”

And off she went.

An evolving tradition

Thirty-seven years later, it’s déjà vu. I’ve been out promoting my latest book, “Twice,” a novel about a man who has the power to do anything in his life over again. And in many ways, I feel that I am playing the lead character, since I am repeating the old pattern, traveling from place to place, chatting with readers, signing my name on the title page.

True, certain elements have changed. People actually show up these days. And I am going across the country instead of across the city — 33 stops on this tour alone. In the old days, they had nice folks called “literary escorts,” who picked you up at the airport and drove you to various radio and TV programs interested in speaking with authors. Today, nearly all those shows are gone. You take Ubers. You do podcasts from a hotel room.

Still, many things remain the same. You travel from town to town. You shake countless hands and exchange pleasantries with people you don’t know, but who feel they know you, because they’re read something you wrote. Some even bring you things — cookies, cards, handwritten notes, books they’ve written, photos from the last time you visited.

It’s a fabulous way to explore America, a window into small towns and big cities, community groups, book clubs, local libraries, churches and synagogues.

It’s also a healthy way to harness your ego. I remember the early days of “Tuesdays with Morrie,” when an FM disc jockey referred to the book as “Tuesdays with Maurice” and opened by saying, “Mitch, the obvious first question is … why Tuesdays?”

I remember a bookstore so small I had to sit with a cat in my lap. And a radio station so small it was in the back of a woman’s house. She broadcast with the window open, and in the middle of our interview, someone outside started mowing the lawn. You couldn’t hear anything but “RRrrrrrRRRRRRR.”

I remember signing books at a Starbucks counter, on a church lawn, in a student union basement, and next to a stack of snow tires in a Costco. There was a shopping mall in the Philippines where thousands of teenagers assembled, and a tiny store in Coldwater, Michigan, where it seemed like the entire population of the town was stuffed inside, because my book “The First Phone Call From Heaven” was set there.

Sadly, a theme of doing book tours for over three decades is disappearance. I signed in so many stores that have long since vanished: Borders, B. Dalton, Waldenbooks, Crown Books, Media Play.

The number of independent bookstores has also shrunk dramatically, victims of impossible competition from large chain stores, box stores like Sam’s Club and Costco, and Amazon.com.

And yet …

The last bastions

There are still places that elicit the old bookstore feel, touch and smell, and the tactile excitement of shelves full of stories.

On this recent “Twice” tour, I visited a lovely shop in Franklin, Indiana, called the Wild Geese Bookshop, which looks like a house on a residential street, complete with a front porch and a bench to sit on.

In Nashville, there was a shop that offered “blind date with a book,” where they wrapped books for sale in plain paper and only hinted what they were about.

And in Cape Cod, in a town deliciously named East Sandwich, there’s a bookstore called Titcomb’s Bookshop that goes back four generations. The woman who now runs it, Rae, has photos of her great-grandmother working in the same shop. That’s tradition. Sturdy, important tradition.

But the best part of these book tours is the people. They sound different in different places. But our personal dynamic remains the same: They read a story; they come to meet the person who created it. I write a story, and I come to meet the people kind enough to have read it.

It’s a beautiful exchange, one that, sadly, is dying out. Few authors do book tours anymore. Publishers can’t afford them. The economics don’t justify it.

Which only makes me appreciate them even more. I am grateful for every handshake, every boisterous collector, every nervous teenager, every shy customer with an old, tattered book they’d like personalized.

Bookstores remain wonderful places, bazaars of life-changing information, soaring fantasies, personal histories, romances, thrillers and delightful photos. I don’t mind returning there “Twice’’ — or even more. After all these years, I remain honored by the invitation.

But I still don’t know where the cookbooks are.

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom on x.com.

It was 1989, and an earthquake had just hit San Francisco, where I was sitting inside Candlestick Park about to write on a World Series game. The stadium had thundered, the players and fans had frantically evacuated and it was dark. No lights. Despite police warning us to leave, I had stayed, along with several other sportswriters, to get a story filed.

But I couldn’t see.

So I got a match and lit my box lunch on fire. And as the cardboard burned, I read the words off my screen into a pay phone, as my sports editor on the other end took them down.

Just another night on the job — one I have been doing, they tell me, for 40 years now. It doesn’t feel that long. Some of it, like writing about Michigan facing Ohio State for all the marbles, feels like yesterday.

Then again, some of it, like the Lions sniffing a Super Bowl, definitely feels new.

40 years of incredible moments, around the world

Here are a few other things I did for this job: Got chased by bulls in Pamplona. Walked the Great Wall of China. Raced Lance Parrish in a swimming pool. Took John Salley to his first hockey game. Flew in a biplane to cover the Iditarod in Alaska. Watched the lights go out on Tiger Stadium.

I visited Scott Skiles in jail. Sat next to an injured Kirk Gibson on a long flight home. Got into an argument with Bo Schembechler when he came out of a shower, wearing nothing but a towel. Went to sit down in the home of a bereaved Detroit mother who’d lost her son to gun violence and heard her warn me, “Don’t sit there. They shoot through the windows.”

Got a bucket of ice water dumped on my head by Willie Hernández (sadly, one of his more accurate pitches that year). Became a lucky charm driver for Jacques Demers during the Red Wings playoffs. Created a fictional World Series after a baseball strike canceled the real one.

Went to Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7. Went to Honduras after the devastation of Hurricane Mitch (of all the names) in 1998. Went to Haiti after the catastrophic 2010 earthquake.

I’ve written too many columns about rich, selfish athletes, but plenty about truly humble, amazing ones. I’ve written too many stories about drunk drivers taking innocent lives, but plenty about brave people helping to save them.

I’ve written too many columns having to defend Detroit, but plenty about what’s great about it. And I’ve written too many columns about loss — my parents, our little girl, friends, teachers, major influences — but plenty about inspiring people who are still here, shaping our lives for the better.

When I began newspaper writing, there were no cell phones, and our computers took batteries. Yet somehow today, we have earlier deadlines than we did back then.

When I began, nearly 650,000 people got a Free Press newspaper every day. Today, it’s a fraction of that, and the majority read it on a phone, tablet or computer screen.

It’ a shrinking business, harder than it ever was. So why stay?

I guess because, also when I began, I received a letter at the Free Press offices — before I’d ever written my first column — from a married couple. I’m guessing they were older. It welcomed me to Detroit, wished me well, then added — I’m paraphrasing here — “We know you won’t stay in Detroit long, because none of the good ones do. But we hope you enjoy our city while you are here.”

If you wonder why I’m still here after 40 years, the answer is somewhere in that letter.

A job of making connections, in Detroit and beyond

I’ve mentioned what I’ve done for this job. Here’s what this job has done for me.

It has taken me around the world. It has exposed me to the most glorious sports moments, and the most heartbreaking.

It has given me entrée to places people dream about going — champagne-doused locker rooms, Olympic stadiums, championship parades, spring training batting cages.

It’s given me notoriety and it’s taught me humility. It’s brought me face to face with people I will always remember, and some I wish I could forget. It’s honed my writing skills the way a grinding wheel sharpens a blade, and taught me never to get too attached to your sentences, because they might end up trimmed to fit a tire ad.

But mostly, it has provided a megaphone, and a stethoscope, to a city and state that I love, one that I’d never been to before arriving in my mid-20s, yet feels more like a true home than anyplace I have ever been in my life.

The purist joys of this job are not the seats you get in the Super Bowl press box. They are the moments you walk into a local coffee shop and see someone reading your column. Moments someone spots you and yells, “Hey, Mitch, are the Lions gonna do it today?” Moments the family of someone you eulogized takes your hand and says, “Thank you.”

What this job does for me, and what I hope I do for it, is connect us, your voice to my ears, my voice to yours. And no matter how the newspaper business changes, until they shut down the final printing press, that will always be the dynamic.

It is one I remain proud to practice. Forty years, huh? So be it. Just a number. I feel blessed and lucky to do this job. And If they’ll have me, I’ll continue doing it, as long as I can so decently, with compassion, and the occasional wink.

Also, thanks to backlit computers, I no longer have to set my lunches on fire.

So I got that going for me.

Which is nice.

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom on x.com.

And too soon, he was.

Chad died when he was 5 years old, of a brain cancer known as DIPG, or diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma. His clock stopped forever.

His brothers’ did not.

They grew up, as they’d dreamed, taking snaps under center. They became high school football stars. And this weekend, their parents, Tammi and Jason Carr, prepared for the strangest of contrasts.

On Saturday, they planned to be in the stands at Notre Dame Stadium cheering on their oldest son, C.J. Carr, in his first season as starting quarterback for the Fighting Irish.

And on Sunday, they would mark 10 years since they lost Chad.

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal; love leaves a memory no one can steal. That’s an old Irish expression. Mixing those two entities, love and death, is the challenge whenever a family suffers a loss.

“It’s hard,” Tammi Carr admitted. “Even watching these football games. You’ve lost a child and now you’re watching an entire team run after your other child. Like, I want to put my kids in bubble wrap, right?

“But that’s not what they were born to do.”

 ‘What is truly hard’

Anyone who has lost a little one will tell you there is no greater sadness. And that it affects everything, including the dynamics with your other children. Sometimes, there is overprotection. Sometimes there is guilt. Always there is a shadow.

But rarely do you find yourself on one day cheering for your son on national television and the next day crying on the anniversary of his brother’s death. It’s dizzying. Confusing. You have to find a balance.

“I don’t feel guilty, I feel grateful,” Tammi said. “Grateful that I have two amazing other kids who are doing incredible things and are thriving. And I feel like they’re honoring their brother in everything they do, because I know they’re bringing him with them.”

Tammi admits that she wasn’t always sure how her sons were processing the loss of their little brother, because, as is often the case with teenage boys, they don’t always share their emotions.

But last Thursday, out of the blue, she was told of a long piece that C.J. wrote for the Players’ Tribune. And reading it brought tears to her eyes.

Entitled “100 Years of Love In Five Years of Life,” it was a beautiful, heart-tugging essay about a departed baby brother. C.J. wrote about memories they shared, about their weekly “Boys’ Night” tradition every Friday where they watched movies and pigged out on food with their father, about the way Chad teased the University of Michigan-centric family by saying his favorite football team was Alabama. But mostly about his brother’s incredible courage, battling an inoperable brain tumor that would take his life.

“I think about him all the time,” C.J. wrote, “and at the end of the day, he is a huge source of inspiration for me. For him to go through that tough time, and all that pain, and still keep a smile on his face and keep that positive attitude? I can’t explain to you how much that drives me to push through any challenges that I might face.

“I mean, let’s be real. If Chad could go through chemo and, eventually, not being able to move his left arm and leg at all, and still be cracking jokes and keeping everyone’s spirits up … I can absolutely choose to do hard things. After watching him be so tough, my context of what is truly hard is very different.”

A boy’s mighty legacy

The Carr family often refers to “Chad Winks,” little signs they take as the young boy sending messages from heaven; like C.J.’s first game in Miami, where the opposing team’s colors included orange, Chad’s favorite shade. Or Saturday’s Notre Dame game against Syracuse, whose team name is … the Orange.

But Chad Carr, in his absence from this Earth, has done far more than wink. He inspired the creation of ChadTough, a foundation the Carrs created to help other families battling DIPG and one day find a cure. To date, ChadTough has raised more than $41 million for DIPG research, now the largest single source of funding for that cause. If the disease will one day be eradicated, you can bet ChadTough will be connected to it.

That’s a hell of a legacy for a 5-year-old.

In the meantime, Tammi, Jason, C.J. and brother Tommy, who starred at Saline High School and just committed to play quarterback at Michigan (where his father also played and his grandfather Lloyd won a national championship as coach) will mark a decade without their littlest member, who will remain forever young, if forever gone.

“One of his best friends, he comes and brings me flowers every year on Chad’s birthday,” Tammi said, “and last year he had come from one of the high school football games, and he said, ‘Oh, Miss Tammi, I wish Chad were here. And I wish he was going to be our quarterback.’ And I said, ‘Oh, honey, that’s so sweet. But he probably would have been in the band.’ ”

Like a little drummer boy, Chad Carr marched to his own beat, and while his music stopped 10 years ago, its rhythm continues, in the thumping hearts of excited parents watching his brothers’ football games, and in the sobs of a mother mourning her son on the anniversary of his passing.

It’s strange when those things come on the same weekend. But as Tammi said, “There’s no playbook for this. You just try and give yourself grace.”

By the way, every year, on the anniversary of Chad’s passing, the Carrs try to go to a restaurant, have a meal, and leave a large tip for the wait staff, with a note on the bill about their son and how, in his honor, they’re trying to pay things forward.

The other males in the family may all been quarterbacks, but in that moment, and so many others, little Chad Carr is still carrying the ball, and gaining ground.

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom on x.com.

He could have blamed the French. 

After all, it was a French magician, George Méliès, who, in the late 19^th century, accidentally invented the editing technique that ultimately led, 130 years later, to the BBC’s faux pas.  

Méliès was filming a street scene in France when his crank-up camera jammed. He eventually got it rolling again and continued shooting. 

Only when he developed the film did he see that a carriage that had been in his lens suddenly turned into a hearse. 

Of course, we now know it was two scenes that the camera, by stopping and starting, had accidentally — yet seamlessly — edited together. Kind of like what the BBC did. 

Minus the “accidentally” part. 

What a difference a splice makes. 

Did BBC intend The Edit? 

Let’s talk about The Edit. It is journalism’s most significant and least discussed shaper of public opinion. In its most benign form, The Edit — jump cutting, cutaways, trimmed sound bites, selective quotes — simply shortens things without changing the meaning or intent. 

In its most harmful form, The Edit completely distorts.  

But in all cases, The Edit it is not, as journalists like to aspire to, the purist reflection of the truth.  

Which is what makes it so dangerous. 

The BBC shot itself in the foot when, in a show last year called “Panorama,” it stitched together two sound bites from Trump’s infamous Jan. 6, 2021, speech. 

In reality, Trump said, “We are going to walk down to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.” 

Then, over 50 minutes later, he made the comment, “And we fight. We fight like hell.” 

The “Panorama” program took part of the first quote, connected it to the second, and aired this: 

“We are going to walk down to the Capitol … and I’ll be with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.” 

When played that way, it sounds like Trump was marching in front of an angry army, exhorting it to fight like hell every step of the way.  

But he never actually said that. And, no matter how awful the events of Jan. 6 may have been, no amount of mea culpas will convince any skeptic that the BBC did this in error.  

At best, whoever edited it believed that the two sentences were essentially the same sentiment. At worst, it was deliberately done to make Trump look bad. (Or worse than he already did.) 

Either way, it’s not honest journalism. But it is hardly the first, tenth, thousandth or millionth time such a thing has been done. 

Editing is part of journalism 

As a journalist, let me be blunt. Everyone in our business edits in some fashion.  

There’s the obvious video cuts, sound trims or print ellipsis which reduce the length of a comment. There’s the “cutaway,” where the TV camera goes to the reporter’s face nodding, while the sound of the interviewee is being cut from one point and attached to another. 

But there’s more. Whenever reporters decide which quotes or sound bites to include and which to leave out, they are editing. Whenever editors decide what part of the story to reflect in the headline or commercial tease, they are editing.  

Whenever higher-ups choose what page to place the story, or where it goes in the newscast, they are editing.  

Because all these decisions affect the way the reader/viewer/listener perceives the otherwise “pure” truth of the story, which would be to basically hold a mirror up from its first moment to its last. 

Trump may play the aggrieved party over the BBC incident, but it is hardly new. Last year, Democrats filed formal complaints with Fox News about their editing of a Trump interview on the Jeffrey Epstein files. We all remember the complaints about CBS’ editing of its Kamala Harris and Kristi Noem interviews, allegedly to make one look bad and one good. 

In 2012, NBC News was sued after an editor spliced George Zimmerman’s emergency 911 call concerning Travon Martin. In the actual call, Zimmerman told the dispatcher, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.” 

When the dispatcher asked Zimmerman if the person was white, Black or Hispanic, he said, “He looks Black.” 

The NBC edit had Zimmerman saying, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks Black.” 

What a difference a splice makes. 

‘Consistent application’ not always applied 

As a result of the BBC’s “Panorama” debacle, its director general and head of news both resigned. The BBC has apologized to Trump (he’d demanded this) but has refused to agree to pay him compensation (which he’s also demanded).  

Britain’s culture secretary — yes, they have one of those — told the media that the BBC’s editorial standards were “in some cases not robust enough and in other cases not consistently applied.”  

Those words, “consistently applied,” may be the most insidious part of this whole problem. We journalists can hide behind “everybody edits, there’s not enough space to print/play everything!”  

But choosing what image to keep and what to cut, what sound to play first and what immediately follows, where to put the ellipsis in the paragraph and where to pick up — “consistent application” — are all individual decisions that, quite often, are not scrutinized enough, and can be the difference in presenting someone as positive or as negative.  

Sometimes journalists figure “it’s obvious these are two different moments.” But that is assuming the viewer understands how the business works. Too often, people just watch a string of comments by a newsmaker, stitched together by a news outlet, and assume that everything that person says is of that ilk. (Cable news programs do this all the time.) 

And nobody — except perhaps the injured party — complains. 

More of us should. Like many things with Trump, the president is an unlikely (and sometimes unlikeable) example of a point that is still important. And in this case, critical.  

In a world of artificial intelligence, where we very soon will not be able to tell what is real and what is not — even in front of our eyes — trusting journalists with what they present may be the only way of getting to the truth. 

With such a heavy burden in our hands, we should be highly careful of where we make our cuts. And ask ourselves if, like Méliès’ broken camera, we are turning a carriage into a hearse. The editing button is not meant to be a weapon. Unfortunately, it makes a very good one. 

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom on x.com.

“Are you the Wolfman?” the young man asks. 

The man laughs and says no, but he promises to try and get the request to the famous broadcaster, who, he says, is likely in some exotic place around the world. The two shake hands. But as the young man leaves, he glances through the slightly ajar door and sees the man howling into the microphone, and realizes he actually just met his hero, working all alone, after midnight. 

I thought about that scene after I heard that Warren Pierce had died. Warren, who was 82, was one of those radio lifers, a man who worked at various stations, mostly WJR-AM, for nearly 50 years, and still never got enough. He talked. He interviewed. He hosted. He announced. There was no subject he wouldn’t tackle, no personality with whom he wouldn’t chat.  

Although he might get recognized from some TV work, he was mostly, like the Wolfman, a voice you knew more than a face, a voice you trusted, a voice you liked. 

There were once many guys like Warren. Not so anymore. They are fading, retiring, dying, and with them, an archetype that will not be seen again. Their vocal styles varied, from velvet to sandpaper, from baritone to bass. But they had one thing in common.  

They lived to be heard. 

‘It’s Warren Pierce … ‘ 

Warren lived to be heard as well. His voice was on the higher side, pleasantly energized, and infused with a curiosity that suggested there was no one in the world more fascinating than the person he was talking to.  

He supposedly interviewed over 70,000 people, and I believe it, because Warren was the kind of guy to keep track. He saved his interviews. He saved his sound effects. He saved his sound bites. When he came in to do a shift, he brought everything with him, like a traveling road show. 

“It’s Warren Pierce on a Monday …” he’d say, or a Tuesday, or a Saturday morning. Over the decades, for WJR, he had a weekday show, a weekend show, he did the Michigan football games, he substitute-hosted. He was, for a while, omnipresent, and in the early days he even traveled for reporting, to the Oscars, to Europe, to the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. 

But as the years passed, such assignments dwindled. Radio became angrier, political, you had to take a side, and Warren wanted only to be on the side of the microphone that went out. He left radio and did some TV for a while. But his heart was in the booth. He returned to WJR and was a utility man, filling in everywhere, including a show I have done there for the last 29 years. 

It was here that I got to know Warren better. He was so earnest, so devoted to any program he did, that he sometimes made us laugh. He’d bring 20 soundbites for a segment that was scheduled for four minutes. He’d ask a question so full of facts, there was little time for an answer.  

But he wore his passion on his sleeve. And he talked. And talked. And talked some more. Even in the last few years, when he was reportedly battling medical challenges, he spoke to his audience through Facebook.  

“I’m going to miss you so much!” he posted last year. 

And that was the thing that separated Warren and his generation of broadcasters from so many today who use the microphone solely to elevate their brand. 

He cared about his listeners. 

A changing art form 

Try this experiment sometime. Close your eyes, and listen to someone speak to you. It’s a whole different experience than seeing your conversationalist. It feels closer. More intimate. And that’s the beauty of radio. Someone miles away, maybe thousands of miles, can speak to you as if you’re in the room. 

It’s an art form that is disappearing, which saddens me. Podcasts are the new radio, iPhones are the new radio, Spotify is the new radio, anyone can listen to what they want, when they want, for as much or as little as they want — often with images as well as sound. In order to stand out, you need to be controversial, loud, or famous. 

Which doesn’t leave much room for the traditional radio folks, the ones who truly enjoyed taking phone calls, chatting about the local news, the crazy weather we’re having, the visiting musician or the annual festival. There are so many dedicated people who have been silenced, disenfranchised or lost to age and illness. And few taking their place.  

Here’s to all the old voices, who didn’t care if they were in a remote tower, after midnight, as long as they got to be on the air and speak to the people. There is a magic you feel sitting behind a microphone, and even though the audience can’t see you, they can tell if you’re listening, can tell if you care, can tell if you love it.  

Warren Pierce loved it. What better thing can a person say about his work? 

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom on x.com.

Not anymore. 

At the quarter pole of the 21st century, it is New York City in the spin cycle of chaos, with a mayor’s race that is ugly and roiling the populace. The Big Apple, which has been dealing with a population exodus over the last five years while remaining the most expensive city in the nation, may be on the precipice of electing Zohran Mamdani, a controversial 34-year-old with no real experience in running anything. 

This would follow three different mayors over the last 12 years: Michael Bloomberg, criticized for favoring the rich, adopting a “stop and frisk” police policy, and regulating sugary drinks; Bill DeBlasio, who was seen as arrogant, bad on the homeless issue and police, and more interested in running for president, and Eric Adams, so embroiled in a federal indictment for bribery and fraud, and “too-cozy” criticism with the Trump administration, that his bid for reelection fizzled quickly. 

During that same time, Detroit has had just one mayor, Mike Duggan, who led the city out of bankruptcy, heavily eliminated the blight issues, brought down crime, brought up investment, and recently boasted an 84% approval rating. 

Slight difference, huh? 

The Best of New York? 

In New York, Mamdani has divided the voters — and in many ways, the nation — as to his intentions, his qualifications and his honesty. 

His proponents see him as a fresh face unbeholden to the political machine, an advocate for the poor and the marginalized, a Muslim man who knows what it means to battle hate, and a young guy who gets that the cost of renting an apartment in New York is insane, like pretty much everything else there. 

His critics see him as a slick product of the social media age, an anti-rich, antisemitic activist with unworkable ideas borne from the Democratic Socialist party to which he proudly claims membership. They paint him as a hypocritical poser, claiming to be marginalized when his father is an Ivy League professor and his mother an Oscar-nominated film director. 

Many New Yorkers don’t like Mamdani, but their alternatives are hardly exciting: There’s former-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in disgrace over sexual harassment charges and seems to be running for the last office he can, or Curtis Sliwa, the omnipresent founder of the Guardian Angels, who ran four years ago and had no chance, and has no chance this time, either. 

The real question in New York may not be why Mamdani is leading, but why, in a city of 8.5 million people, are these three the best they can come up with? 

Detroit gets public support 

Now consider Detroit. Duggan, a White mayor in a city that is 77% Black and 8% Latino, has led for a dozen years of relative calm. When other cities — including New York — raged, burned and saw massive looting during the George Floyd aftermath, Detroit held steady. It endured COVID-19 better than many major metropolises. Businesses continued to invest in downtown. And after years of diminishing population, the numbers are going the other way.  

A recent poll shows that 76% of Detroiters think the city is heading in the right direction. Seventy-six percent? 

Yes. A similar poll in NYC found that only 31% feel that way about their city. 

Which may be why our mayoral race feels almost sleepy — especially compared to the rancor of the Big Apple. Our City Council president, Mary Sheffield, has a big lead in the polls and is the presumptive winner. And while she is not without her critics, she certainly makes more logical sense as a successor to Duggan, someone she has worked closely with for years in a power position just a slot below his, than a total outsider like Mamdani, a disgraced former governor like Cuomo, or a controversial crime-stopping organizer like Sliwa. 

Now, Detroit is far from perfect. Our crime is still too high, as is our unemployment. And our school system seems to be in perpetual turmoil, although, in fairness, unlike in other cities, that is not controlled by the mayor. 

But given their traditional reputations, and the national disdain often hurled Detroit’s way, it’s worth noting that the bigger mess right now seems to be in The City That Never Sleeps, which could take a few lessons from the civility, cooperation and pride that Motown has been cultivating. As someone who spent his early career in the former and will finish his career in the latter, I can tell you, the difference is substantial. 

Also, $4,000 a month will pay the mortgage on a nice house here. 

It gets you a studio apartment in Greenwich Village.  

Take your pick.

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom on x.com.