How will sports writers establish an alibi?

Why should any sports editor send a reporter to the game, if the reporter is not going to include anything he sees or hears? If the reporter is just going to take the elevator to the press box, and write down the information that's available to everyone in the box score, if the reporter may not have even gotten close to the athletes or coaches and was just handed the quotes by an intern in the SID department, if the reporter wouldn't be able to use the game story to establish an alibi if the reporter were charged with a homicide in another town, then why send the reporter?

Pick any game story from today, and try to find anything in that story that proves that the writer was at the game.

Stats, quotes, scores
Stats, quotes, scores
Stats, quotes, scores

It's the rare story that describes how any athlete looked doing the things they did. Or any coach. Or fan. Maybe one story in three? One in ten?

Hardly any play is described -- only the yardage, the record, the score. No one slides hard into third, or jukes the linebacker on the way to the goal line. I know time is tight on deadline, but even in updates and writethrus a couple of hours later, stories still include no description.

Why don't reporters report what they see and hear?

Are we assuming that everyone watched the game on TV, and therefore we don't need to include any description?

Are we assuming that those details go in the column or the color story, so they are taking up valuable space in the gamer? Are we assuming it's all in the photos?

Or is there some other reason? Do reporters consciously choose not to include anything they see or hear at the game? Are they writing what they see others write? Are they doing what the editors want?

 

Hounds?

 

Fuck that reporter.

 

Don't forget the video shot of the scoreboard at the final horn.

 

Damn, they're getting good air there.

 

The hounds juked a linebacker into submission prior to sliding hard into third.

Damn, that'd make a great slide show.

 

Welcome to SJ, Mr. Cuban.

 

A dateline will suffice.

 

WTF

 

Unless one works for a publication where a dateline merely indicates where the action took place, not if the reporter was there.

I'm just curious who inthesuburbs is reading, because the stories don't seem to be very good. Also, it's not high school sports.

 

So if I say that Podunk Coach Paisley Peterson jiggled the change in his pockets on the sideline as the Podunk Plodders lined up on third-and-12 with 1:31 remaining, I can use that to prove I didn't bludgeon and bury that noisy neighbor earlier that evening?

Good to know, thanks!