"Sports writing is fairly formulaic ... we can automate what sports writers do."

For sure.

I don't think your post contradicts mine so much as it clarifies/advances it.

 

Agreed.

I just want to make sure we're not thinking about this stuff in terms of absolutes, which is something that occasionally comes up here, whether we're talking about the basics nuts and bolts of journalism (where to use quotes; how to write a lead; how to work a locker room; when to ask controversial questions to a manager/player) or if we're talking about more complex writing issues like Junod's/Kram/DFW's/Smith's stylistic flourishes vs. the beautiful minimalism of Red Smith/Heinz/Angell.

It's easy to err by going to either extreme of just about anything. You wouldn't want to write a column/story with no quotes. And you wouldn't want to write something that you see a lot of today, which is quotes that don't advance the story at all and are just filler.

Anyway, this is a weird thread to be having an actual craft discussion, because the "robots can be sports writers too!" is a truly dumb theory that keeps coming up, over and over, almost like a scare tactic. Yes, robots can probably write wrap-up summaries for the reader who has so little curiosity, all he/she wants is the raw numbers and names punched into a template. The audience for those kind of stories is tiny, for the same reason robots don't making paintings or write novels anyone would want to look at or read. That requires even a minimum amount of soul.

 

Readers care a lot less than the denizens of this site want to think.

 

As a self-appointed member of the Fighting Denizens, let me just say that Bill Simmons enormous success at showing no charisma at all in any of his writing certainly backs your point. I look forward to the day robots are writing books that have people wrapped around the block, waiting to get their autograph.

 

For the record, sex also can be formulaic and can be done via machine.

But it's not going away anytime soon.

 

+1

 

I started noticing the recaps on my Yahoo! league (4-1, first place ...) a couple weeks back and thought, well, yeah, with complete stats and names, a machine can do this pretty well.

They aren't re-working the annual APSE Best Gamer list (have one of those Top 10s gathering dust somewhere ...), people.

rb

 

My son's baseball team does all of its scorekeeping on GameChanger, and it includes a function to produce a writeup. It's not bad -- think of it as equivalent to a desker writing up three grafs off a boxscore. With a data-heavy sport I can see how well it does, but for soccer or something I don't see how it would be anything besides a roundup of goals and whatever the scorekeeper calls "saves."

 

Wow, a single writer example, backed with sarcasm and a nice dose of arrogance.

Look! It's Double Down!

 

I'd reframe a debate over readers and what they care about this way, maybe: It depends upon which readers we're talking about, and where and what they're reading.

 

That would intentionally skew the sample to say whatever the person asking the question wants it to say.

"SMART readers are the ones we care ABOUT!!!!!!!!"

Under those parameters, there really is no "debate" to be had here.

 

I think it just means there's room in the world for disposable, automated gamers and well-written stories, too. But I'm not sure how much overlap you'd get in audiences - or advertisers.