Within the last 10 days, the Detroit Free Press shouldered the burden of one of its star writers, Mitch Albom, a best-selling book author, radio sports personality and sports columnist, putting an item in his column that never took place. Albom had an early deadline to face and wanted to include an item about two NBA players going to an NCAA game to watch their former team, Michigan State, play. The item even included a note that the NBA players were wearing the college basketball shirts of their former team.

One problem: The players never went to the game. Albom had to write his column for an early-deadline special section on the NCAA playoffs, but he did not even revert to the wiggle room most of us create when we write about events that have not happened yet. The phraseology goes like this: So and so and his brother were expected to show up at the game in their old college team shirts.

This is not brain surgery or rocket science. This is the business of giving people a daily snapshot of what is happening in their neighborhood, their city, their state, the nation and the world.

The topic on the lips of editors from across the country who gathered for the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington this week was "what to do about Mitch Albom."

The editors were reported to be conflicted. He's such a rich talent, he's so famous, he's so much a part of the Detroit Free Press franchise, yada, yada, yada. They wrung their hands about how much blame for the incident to ascribe to the copy editors who read the column. "Shouldn't they have been sharp enough to catch the error?"

Maybe. But at some newspapers, star columnists write "untouchable" copy; editors can correct spelling, but the content is sacred.

That's silly - and dangerous.

Copy editors are the unsung heroes of the newspaper business. Their names never appear in the paper - unless they die and someone writes an obit on them. But they save the careers of many reporters and the credibility of many newspapers by challenging every sentence that's not clear and every paragraph that can confuse the reader. This would have been an easy catch in anyone else's copy, I suspect.

The Boston Globe may have topped even that incident this week, however, when it printed a story by a freelance writer about a seal hunt, only to discover that the seal hunt she described never took place. They ran the following correction on Friday:

"Editor's Note: An article by a freelance writer based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in Wednesday's Globe said that the season's hunt for baby seals off Newfoundland had begun the previous day. In fact, the hunt did not begin that day; it was delayed by bad weather, and is scheduled to begin today, weather permitting. The article included details of the day's hunt as if it had taken place and without attribution or other sourcing, as if the writer had witnessed the scene personally. Details included the number of hunters, a description of the scene, and the approximate age of the cubs. The author's failure to accurately report the status of the hunt and her fabrication of details at the scene are clear violations of the Globe's journalistic standards. Because the free-lancer was not reporting from the scene, Globe editors should have demanded attribution for any details she provided about the hunt itself. The story should not have been published in the Globe, and the Globe has discontinued use of the free-lancer."

That is the journalistic equivalent of mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

A quick call to a newspaper - even a weekly - somewhere near the location of the seal hunt would have revealed this pack of lies immediately.

This part of good journalism has never changed: It's always the one phone call or e-mail or other exercise in fact-checking that saves the story - and the reputation of the newspaper. It's always worth investing that extra five minutes in making sure you are correct.

32

Number of complaints about too much LDS coverage.

9

Number of readers who think The Tribune needs more "good" news.

25

Number of complaints about poor spelling and grammar.

11

Number of readers upset over placement of obituaries.