Pub Discussion: NFL Writers

How did Steve Hummer win a best beat reporter award? He is a features writer, to my knowledge.

 

There are several names on those lists who are definitely not beat writers.

 

When I saw the list of guys like Hummer and Pat Forde, I was just thinking national beat instead of a team beat.
Maybe that's it?

 

Pat Forde has a beat: college football. Doesn't Steve Hummer write the big Sunday features on all sorts of topics? I am not sure Scott M. Reid has a conventional beat, either.

 

Isn't Forde a columnist?

 

That was my thought as well. I guess his position is something of a hybrid because not everything he writes is opinion and he still breaks news. But I'd definitely lean more toward national columnist than national beat writer.

 

He is a beat columnist. Your favorite example any time beat reporting is mentioned is Rick Gosselin, right? He also is a beat columnist. So is Adrian Wojnarowski. They are doing a ton of beat reporting but often using that reporting as the basis for columns. It's a better, more efficient model to getting readers what they really want.

 

The thing about Shefter is his number of actual scoops declined about 95 percent when he went from NFL Network to ESPN.

Funny how that happens.

 

Forde is a national college columnist.