In the ‘West Virginia beats top-seeded Kentucky, 73-66’ article reporter Paul Zeise seems to spend to much time trying to cram every little bit of info into his article. Every sentence that I read had my head spinning and trying to understand how it all was relevant. Numbers are everywhere and the stats lose all of their meaning when they are tucked into the convoluted sentences.
The ‘Kingco 3A Tournament: M.I. heads to districts’, article fell short in more than one way. For starters the coverage of the boy’s game was less than impressive. Only one person’s interview is featured in the article and that person makes what some could call an offensive statement about soccer. Yes, it may just be nit picky but why feature a quote that could be in any way taken out of context. But even though the boy’s coverage was unimpressive, it was more substantial than the pitiful coverage the girl’s team received. It is blatantly lopsided so much so that I wonder if he should have bothered to put in on the page at all. Of course I want the coverage but I also think this is a slap in the face. The boys get about three times as much all on the same page.
Tom Bergeron’s article on Tiger Woods was very successful in painting a picture of the event he covered. Golf, at least in my opinion, can be a little dull but Bergeron was able to keep my attention and interest. Not only did he cover the story with the facts, he also was able to intertwine the story of Tiger’s injury. It flowed seamlessly and was well written.
I really enjoyed Dave Kindred’s piece on re-thinking sports writing and I definitely agree with him. Too often the coverage of sports events are dry and strictly factually with little else. His depiction of a family at a baseball game was right on. I am a lover of baseball games, not necessarily for the game but for the atmosphere and social aspects. Just because I am sitting in the stands does not guarantee that I got the whole story. Sports writers have the awesome job of giving us that story. I really enjoy a story that manages to find the interesting twist or the background story. We as humans are intrinsically interested in knowing the inside lives of celebrities, and athletes are celebrities now-a-days. The two articles that failed to catch my interest fell into a lot of the typical traps that Kindred described. I found it very interesting that he attempts to interview ten people before he completes the article. In at least one of the above articles there was only one interview done and the story was flat and boring as a result.
In my attempts to be a fledgling sports reporter I want to be able to find the interesting story that the people don’t know, the story that they will be interested to know. Not every game story will have an interesting twist or factoid. But every story has the potential to be interesting and better than the next and that is what I will be trying to do. I think relationships are important in this industry, not only between reporter and subject or reporter and audience. I think reporters are the connection between the people and the story; it is their job to make it interesting and desirable.