Journalism Today

Chapter 12: Writing Sports Stories

Overview

People tend to get their sports coverage from television or radio. As a result, newspaper sportswriters need to do more than simply report the score: they must interpret the event in order to offer something more to the fans who have already seen the game. Sports fans want the stories they read to reflect the tension, the color, the excitement of the event; therefore, the writing must reflect those same qualities. Sportswriters are for the hometown team, and fans want the writer's informed perspective. For example, eager fans may look to find the writer's opinions about the coach's or players' decisions.

When writing about sports, it can be difficult to discern between legitimate sports terminology (birdie, eagle, etc.), certain acceptable slang expressions (knockout, blitz, bomb), and "slanguage," or trite expressions that stem from the jargon of sports. Unfortunately, sportswriters tend to overuse "slanguage."

Before you can write about a sport, you must know as much as possible about that sport, including all the rules, strategies, and the reasons behind them. You should read sports pages thoroughly, watch sports events on television, go to team practices, travel with the team, and even participate in sports if possible. You should also get to know the coaches and players who are the sources of information and interviews that brighten coverage. When you interview them, get their feelings and opinions.

Sports coverage means that you cover every sport at your school, including men and women's sports, winning and losing teams, junior varsity and varsity, individual sports and team sports. You can also expand your coverage to include non-school sports, like skateboarding or snowboarding. To cover everything in limited space, condense events coverage using, for example, sports "shorts," brief articles that capture relevant information and provide a record of events. Include sports features in your coverage in order to make past sports events fresh and interesting. Sports features are about sports topics, like sports technology or the training regimens of athletes; they may also be personality profiles.

In addition to sports features, scholastic sportswriters write three types of stories: pregame, game, and postgame. All types can be featurized, or given a feature angle. The pregame story is an advance story about a sports event, which should include background and other information about both teams. The game story recounts the play-by-play activities of a game. When covering a game, do not show your partisanship, it may interfere with your reporting. Finally, the postgame story is a follow-up story about a sports event in the recent past.

Without sportswriters there would be no record of the grand achievements of athletes, but the work can be difficult and demanding, requiring odd work hours and a great deal of travel. Yet, despite the demands, most professional sportswriters love their jobs.

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