Driving me bananas

[SFIND]

I'm glad my editor doesn't make me keep a full box for the sake of keeping a full box and made/missed shots, turnovers, rebounds, assists, etc. That was 2005 stuff for us. There's no way I could do it shooting photos, video and tweeting every game. We did away with printing high school boxes a few years ago and we later dumped a daily agate page, too. I don't think we've had more than 10 total complaints in the years that have followed. Besides the fact that you can get a full box on your phone minutes after any NCAA or professional event, many HS conferences around us now have their own websites that are nothing but schedules and score reporting. The schools have statkeepers that load the stats onto the site either immediately after the game (if they're using the website's software to track stats), later that night or the next day at the absolute latest. We can't compete with the high schools having their boxes up online soon after the game. The conference sites have been around for nearly a decade now themselves, and every parent/grandparent knows to go there to look for scores and stats. Since our deadlines have been cut back 90 minutes (at best) since I started last decade, there's really no time to type up a full box anyway if the story is going to be of any quality.

I also respectfully disagree with Ace and others about not recording or using game action in videos. Has anyone ever tuned into Sportscenter to see a talking head coach or clips of fans or a celebration? I've never done that. I want to see highlights. Even if all you have is an iPhone, you should be able to park yourself under the basket and get good video of shots in the post or three's from either corner. Every video I make is a mix of highlights and interviews edited together. Now I'm the first one to question doing videos at all because I've seen the numbers for our views, and they're not high. They're not high at any other paper around me, either, based on the people I've talked to. But if I'm made to do it by management, I'm going to do it at the highest quality I can, and just throwing up a video of a talking head is the easy way out (and doesn't tell a story).

One thing I know is very worthwhile is our photo galleries. They get a lot of pageviews. I've grown to enjoy photography, and I'm slowly enjoying the videography more (thanks in part to better HD cameras that my shop bought last summer that produce higher quality video). The separate photo galleries easily draw as much or more pageviews than the stories themselves. Since were essentially getting double the page views for every game (because most people who read the story click to go to the photo gallery), it is time well spent.

To the OP, I respectfully disagree that you need to keep stats to be aware of the flow of the game. I can tell if a center over the course of the game has had a good night rebounding. I may not know if he had 10 rebounds or 14 rebounds, but I notice enough during the game to be aware of it. I can also notice when someone stands out with assists, turns the ball over a lot of has a bad shooting night, has a hot passing night in football, makes a lot of sacks, has a lot of pancake blocks, etc. I don't need to be making marks in a notebook to see that type of stuff as it unfolds. (That said, though, if I was your reporter I would keep stats as you wish and follow your and your shop's rules.)

I have complained on here before about juggling all these duties for every game I cover. Since I've started, more of my stories have turned out mediocre (for the print version, anyway) because I shoot/tweet all game long and have 30 minutes (or less) afterward to write it up. But as I've got more experience juggling, I've got better at doing it all (and now start writing my story during breaks on Microsoft Word on my phone).

I do miss the days when I started 10 years ago of being able to show up at game, stay in the press box/at the scorer's table for all of it, do nothing but keep stats and work on the story during the game, and write it up after. No photos and video to shoot and edit, no tweeting during the game. But I've had to adapt.

 

[Cosmo]

My only thing about video, in regard to highlights. With preps, you're generally competing against a local television station. They'll have professional highlights shot with a real camera while the newspaper will have a video of random highlights shot on a phone. Newspapers write and tell the story better. TV stations shoot video better. Why not concentrate on our strengths?

 

[HanSenSE]

Even before being asked to shoot video, always found keeping track of attempts difficult, if not impossible, while keeping rebounds as well as simple play-by-play when covering prep basketball. Having said that, though, a reporter who doesn't learn how to keep the basics for him/herself needs to learn to keep the basics, in all sports. A few years back, covered a softball all-star game at a local college's stadium. Was trying my damndest to keep score (game rules allowed all 15 players to bat, whether they were playing the field or not), when a student who was stringing for another paper in our chain came up and asked if someone was keeping play-by-play like was done at the college's games, and could he borrow our stats? No, and no ... I was on deadline, after all. When I do cover college and pro games, I'm thankful the PBP sheets are there, and stats beyond the basics, but I don't feel at their mercy.

 

[Geoff Baker]

Haven't written in here before, but enjoy the discussions and wanted to chime in on this particular one. I'm not sure that requiring preps writers to keep detailed logs of stats in high school games is the best use of their time, nor will it prepare them all that well for the future. Yes, we want writers to pay attention to games, but as a previous commenter noted, the best game stories often contain very few numbers. You and I are the same age (I turn 47 in two weeks) and grew up under the same teachings and mindsets. Nowadays, game stories really are becoming an afterthought in the play-by-play retelling of events for newspapers because most readers see stuff on TV and many online blogs will recap game details long before a paper comes out.

I realize high school sports are somewhat different from college and pro in terms of overall exposure, but honestly, I think your readers might appreciate more colorful, feature-type gamers just as much as a comprehensive, stats-filled one. If your goal is to prepare your writer and paper for the future, you might consider that the future of all papers is shifting away from the "what happened yesterday" type of gamers to more meaningful coverage. I gave a talk recently and mentioned that one of the bigger threats to good sports journalism is how some young writers are being molded by sports editors into focusing too heavily on game play-by-play and not enough on the bigger picture. There are some fantastic stories behind the players and games, even at a high school level. I read a roundtable recently conducted by a handful of some of the top NFL beat writers in the business and all of them described their favorite pieces of work as having been off-field stories.

My fear is that too many young beat writers get melded into thinking it's all about the game, keeping things limited to on-field activity and never straying from within those borders. I've seen too many college and pro beat writers adopt much the same mentality and assume it isn't their job to explore topics more deeply, especially off the field.

Please understand, I am not at all suggesting this is your intention. But it could be that asking a writer to focus too heavily on game detail and minutae might encourage him or her not to broaden their horizons. And digital is a huge part of our business now and will be down the road, whether we like it or not. Instead of encouraging over-emphaiss on stats, I would demand the writer produce at least one good enterprise story per week off his beat and start leaning more towards feature-specific game stories.

I do agree that tweeting play-by-play is a waste of everybody's time. Frequent updates (like after each quarter) are not. But a better use of the writer's digital time might be compiling video that can be edited and posted online at some point during the week? I agree with you that the writer should focus on the game. But he should also be learning to think more deeply and tell stories that go beyond what any blogger sitting in the stands might later recap on a home computer. Let him learn to use his access to get at deeper stories that might draw in more readers, even off a gamer. Especially off a gamer, the structure of which was already looking dated by the late 1990s.

If it's the writer's future we're worried about, those skills on becoming more than a game-recapper will serve him immensely well once he moves on to covering bigger sports -- where stats are all tracked instantly in most cases. And if it's the future of the newspaper business we're worried about, training our beat writers to be better than the average blogger sitting at home recapping games is a must. They need to learn right now, at their beginning, how to not confine themselves within an outdated box. How to respect the print product, but also embrace digital as that is still the present and future of the industry. It is possible to do both and to produce better journalism that merely a detailed game recap.

Just my two cents and possible suggestions. I don't pretend to have all the answers. If I did, I'd be making sure far fewer journalists get put out of work this coming year. But times have changed. And the gamers we all used to write 20 years ago, whether covering preps or some bigger level of sports, are simply changing on-the-fly. But this was a good discussion to seek input on and I'm glad so many are chiming in. Cheers!

 

[Mauve_Avenger]

As for tweeting, NO ONE should be tweeting PxP from high school games. Scoring plays and ends of quarters. That's as far as you need to go. Anyone who wants to go deeper is at the game. It can be done, but maybe you tell your guy to cool it on the social media/video stuff for a couple of weeks until he really gets the hang of taking stats. And if he bristles, it's your show, and you put your foot down.

I agree with this. One thing I have noticed from some younger reporters in my area is them tweeting like 50 times per game. Not only is it unnecessary, but it is also pretty annoying to have your Twitter feed filled up with random plays. Just give people basic updates and some analysis, that's what 99 percent of interested people really want.

 

[Ace]

I also respectfully disagree with Ace and others about not recording or using game action in videos. Has anyone ever tuned into Sportscenter to see a talking head coach or clips of fans or a celebration? I've never done that. I want to see highlights. Even if all you have is an iPhone, you should be able to park yourself under the basket and get good video of shots in the post or three's from either corner. Every video I make is a mix of highlights and interviews edited together. Now I'm the first one to question doing videos at all because I've seen the numbers for our views, and they're not high. They're not high at any other paper around me, either, based on the people I've talked to. But if I'm made to do it by management, I'm going to do it at the highest quality I can, and just throwing up a video of a talking head is the easy way out (and doesn't tell a story).

Basketball isn't as bad as football, but I would say you are better off spending the video time taking photos since they do better online. You aren't going to get the traffic on video unless you get something crazy by accident.

If you do any editing at all on videos, I think the time spent vs. traffic generated is extremely low for 99.9 percent of videos.

 

[Ace]

It's funny. I am out of the sports biz for a year now and doing business communications.

We have the same kind of issues I am seeing here.

The assumption is that if you ask reporters to keep "complete" stats, he or she will just load the story with play-by-play.

I liked to have stats so I could pluck out the most pertinent or interesting.

In my current job, I get pushback from subject matter experts when I ask about certain things because they assume I am going to include that in whatever I am writing. Most of the time I just want to know so I understand more completely what I am writing about and don't intend to put it in the article.

Most good writing is deciding what NOT to include. If you include everything you know, your story stinks.

 

[HanSenSE]

I agree with this. One thing I have noticed from some younger reporters in my area is them tweeting like 50 times per game. Not only is it unnecessary, but it is also pretty annoying to have your Twitter feed filled up with random plays. Just give people basic updates and some analysis, that's what 99 percent of interested people really want.

Seconded. Between innings in baseball/softball, at dead balls in hoops and change of possessions in football seems to be enough.

 

[Rhody31]

Shooting video isn't difficult with a phone. You just have to go into it understand you're not going to catch a big play. Wait for a moment when something big will happen, then go.
I was the first one in RI to really use video with social media. The quality sucked, but I got some cool stuff that people liked - girls singing softball songs at a little league game, kids celebrating a HR, etc. Best one I had was a kid's 1,000th point. He needed five. He got a quick three and I planted myself on the baseline. Once he touched the ball, I recorded it. A couple trips later, got the video. Was it great? Nope. But the video and the story were something none of my competitors - opposing weekly, big state paper, local TV - had.
One of the biggest problems with the industry is how quick we'll say "can't" without even trying. Can't usually comes about from fear or laziness. You're either afraid to try something new or too lazy to do it. You can shoot, cover a game, tweet, Vine, get video and put together a good product on all fronts. You just have to figure out how.

 

[sprtswrtr10]

FYI — Our boxscores are not reflecting missed shots/rebounds/steals/assists/turnovers. They are not, and I don't want them to. Takes to long to write up, not worth it. HOWEVER, what I'm saying is, there are minimum things you have to keep as you cover the game that allow you to actually know what happened in the game. I want my guy to get, by player — shooting (makes and misses from FT line, 2s and 3s), rebounds (bonus if offensive and defensive can be kept), scoring sequence and team turnovers. I think you must know those things to know what happened, what really happened, in the game. Then, I want a game story that's high on narrative and very low on play by play. The fundamental disagreement is basically one of, "I don't need to keep any stats but scoring, and I'll know what happened simply by watching the game." And I disagree with this. If you do that, you'll be no more informed about the game than a parent with a program writing down made field goals and FTs. So, if you're going to cover a game in which stats are not provided, there's a minimum that you yourself must keep … not to mention the additional info you record will make its way into notebooks or inform your non-game coverage. There's a way to do this right. We're all doing more, yes. But the minimum required has not changed. This is that minimum.

 

[KyleFranko]

This is a fantastic thread. Thanks to sprtswrtr10 for starting it.

I just left my post at the Idaho State Journal (and I'm looking for work in Michigan), and I feel like we did everything that would drive sprtswrtr10 nuts. As a young sports staff, we wanted to push our online product heavily. We still put a lot of effort into print — a lot — but strove to drive for a positive online presence. For me, that meant video with an iPhone. And a bunch of it. From preps to Idaho State athletics, it didn't matter. We used video. In particular, and it doesn't seem like many folks are talking about this, we used VINE.

I love Vine. A young, hard-working sports writer came to the Journal and shed light on the wonders of Vine for me. They're six-second videos that are absolute gold, especially with Vine's integration with Twitter. During games — volleyball, football, basketball, whatever — we'd tweet vines sporadically. Instead of just telling someone it's 17-14 at half, it was about showing someone it's 17-14 and here's the last scoring play. Are they great videos? Nah. Do they compete with TV? Nah. But they're online immediately. And we embed them in our stories online. Our Twitter interactions skyrocket with those Vines (and regular Twitter video for highlights that run a little longer).

You can see the results for yourselves ...

HEARTBREAK — Bengals lose 33-27 in overtime on crazy ending

HS football: ON TO THE SEMIS — Highland squeaks past Eagle to advance to 5A state semifinals (video)

SHOCKER IN GRAND FORKS — Idaho State upsets North Dakota 37-31

Dreams dashed: Aberdeen falls to Grangeville in 2A championship game (video)

Are people watching those Vines? Between three sports writers, we have a combined 2,340,061 loops as of this post in less than a year (and one of the sports writers just started vining this previous fall). I love the fact we could beat the TV stations and have highlights available before them. And in a small market, the TV stations (many times) can't stay for an entire game. That means you'd have to come to us for the game-winning TD pass or jump shot.

I don't care about the quality. These videos aren't running on someone's television. They're on our phones and laptops.

There is a big BUT, though. It's hard to go to the analytics and prove that all these wonderful videos pushed traffic to our website. There are a couple examples where a certain video did (that'd be this: VIDEO: Madison Mangum's one-handed catch against Black Hills State). Otherwise, however, there's no question that people weren't coming to us for highlights. Readers want us to provide insight, stats, quotes from coaches and players.

And I worry that there were times when we were too focused on video to make sure we took care of all the basics first. sprtswrtr10 wants his new guy to "write with accuracy." Video can get in the way of that. With practice, though, balancing video with stats, photos, all those kinds of duties becomes easier.

After spending the past year going to games and worrying just as much about Twitter/videos as I do stats, I actually feel lazy if I'm at a game and not attempting to take video. I should be doing more. Vine, Twitter videos, they're tools. Valuable ones, in my opinion. No way would I stop using them.

 

[Batman]

Baseball and soccer are easy to keep up with while doing all of the social media, shooting photos/video, etc. The pace is slow enough that I can keep up with the important stuff while doing that.
Football is more difficult, but can be done. With basketball, though, I've found my writing has really suffered since we had staff cuts and I had to start shooting photos at most of the games I covered.
For basketball, I used to keep comprehensive stats. All of the major categories, plus key play by play, team and individual shooting, everything you can think of. I was never very good analyzing the strategy of the game, but I was able to cover that up through my stat keeping. I could figure out the right questions to ask by noticing that Johnny Superstar went 8-for-10 in the first half and 2-for-12 in the second, so something must have happened there. Or Podunk High only had four turnovers, so ball handling was a key factor.

Once I started shooting and covering, I had to completely revamp my method of covering games. My old way was dependent on not missing anything, and if you're shooting pictures it's impossible to keep accurate stats. I developed ways to keep up with runs and follow key points in the game, but if the coaches aren't tracking rebounds, steals, etc. (and a lot of times they have student managers doing it, so it's 50-50 if they get it right or get it at all) I won't have those totals in my game story. I also won't have them for follow-up pieces, which also sucks. Knowing that Player A had a triple-double is a great story. Knowing he's had five straight double-doubles and a two-minute postgame interview can make for a good quick-hit feature on an off day.
What I really hate is that I've found myself asking a lot more general questions instead of focused ones, simply because I'm not sure quite what to ask. I can see that a team is shooting well for a stretch, but I don't know how well. So instead of zeroing in on the 6-for-8 stretch in the third quarter that gave Podunk the lead, getting good quotes from well-informed questions and building the core of a decent story around that, I'm writing vaguely about how well they played in the third quarter and maybe giving a detail or two about the run they made.
In my heart I know I can do better. Only I can't do better because I have to do three other things that doesn't allow me to do it the right way.
I'm enough of a veteran that I can work around it and write something passable. A younger reporter might figure it out with the right tutoring, or if they're good enough, but there's just as good a chance it's going to come off as ill-informed and lacking.

 

[dirtybird]

FYI — Our boxscores are not reflecting missed shots/rebounds/steals/assists/turnovers. They are not, and I don't want them to. Takes to long to write up, not worth it. HOWEVER, what I'm saying is, there are minimum things you have to keep as you cover the game that allow you to actually know what happened in the game. I want my guy to get, by player — shooting (makes and misses from FT line, 2s and 3s), rebounds (bonus if offensive and defensive can be kept), scoring sequence and team turnovers. I think you must know those things to know what happened, what really happened, in the game. Then, I want a game story that's high on narrative and very low on play by play. The fundamental disagreement is basically one of, "I don't need to keep any stats but scoring, and I'll know what happened simply by watching the game." And I disagree with this. If you do that, you'll be no more informed about the game than a parent with a program writing down made field goals and FTs. So, if you're going to cover a game in which stats are not provided, there's a minimum that you yourself must keep … not to mention the additional info you record will make its way into notebooks or inform your non-game coverage. There's a way to do this right. We're all doing more, yes. But the minimum required has not changed. This is that minimum.

I mean this in as gentle a way as possible, but this is your minimum, not THE minimum. I don't think its a bad thing to want your guys to be detailed, but its a want, not a need. I'm positive, many a person has written a good or great HS game story with only a dusting of stats. I understand its good to have for next-day stuff, but your in-depth stats will cover a relatively small number of the games any particular team plays (unless your guys are at games every night and your coverage area is pretty small). So you'll have a small piece of information, and while that's nice, it remains more of a want than a need.

As for being no more informed than a parent keeping stats, it seems sort of insulting to imagine the extent of someone's understanding of a game comes down to having a fuller record of the numbers available. Could a person not gain something from actively watching and noting the goings on in an aesthetic rather than numeric way? It also understates the fact that many reporters have to go into some sports with a less full understanding than some parents. I'd bet a lot of writers walk into volleyball or wrestling with a worse feel for whats going on than some of the parents in the stands. That's life in this business. I mean, almost no prep writers have the stat keeping dexterity to keep hitting percentage for volleyball. That number if pretty important and illuminating, more so than raw kills, aces or digs, but we go without all the time.

I'm interested why, if tracking rebounds is important, you don't make differentiating between offensive and defensive mandatory. I mean, rebounding totals are a context statistic. Saying a team was out-rebounded 25-20 tells almost nothing about what happened in the game. It's just sort of a nice number to adorn a story with.

I've done it both ways. Each has its merits. Having the extra numbers is great if you have a feel for how to use them, but they're no guarantee of better stories or even a better understanding of what you're seeing (there is some backing to what you're seeing, but you also see less because statting consumes more focus).

(Keeping a running scoring log still seems like common sense, I will back that)

 

[dirtybird]

Basketball isn't as bad as football, but I would say you are better off spending the video time taking photos since they do better online. You aren't going to get the traffic on video unless you get something crazy by accident.

If you do any editing at all on videos, I think the time spent vs. traffic generated is extremely low for 99.9 percent of videos.

Do photos do better online? In any case, if you're not shooting video at all, you miss any chance of getting something crazy and high traffic. You can still shoot few clips here and there. On the sideline, you just need to hold up your phone on plays you'd watch anyway, occasionally **** angles. Takes some shuffling. Not sure the time/effort math, but the bosses want it, so might as well try to make it decent?

 

[BrendaStarr]

Whenever I cover high school basketball games, I keep a running play-by-play using shorthand, which helps me keep track of turnovers and scoring runs. I typically jot down the time in the game baskets were scored too, which was helpful when I covered a game where a team failed to score a basket in the final 5ish minutes. I don't know how it is in your area, but most teams that I have covered have a coach on the bench keeping stats electronically and are available right after the game. That has allowed me to not worry about keeping track of rebounds/assists/shooting percentage. Might be worth having your reporter find out before games whether the teams he's covering are keeping those stats because it can be a huge help and means he won't have to do it.

Also, stats don't tell the whole story, and I've always found it distracting when trying to keep every single stat while covering a basketball game. It's important to watch what's going on. Maybe a player is shutting down the opposing team's best player by denying them the ball, not letting them get a shot off, etc. That's something that likely won't show up in those stats. Obviously heavy stat taking is a requirement you have for your prep writer and the standard you want set.

But all that stat tracking might not make him a better writer, which should be the goal, right?

 

[trifectarich]

In the majority of instances, a stat or two isn't what makes or breaks the story, but when you have a choice to use "Hometown High rallied in the second half and beat Podunk," as opposed to "Hometown High went on a 16-2 run over the final 6 minutes of the third quarter," there's no question which is better for the reader. It's not that hard to do, but, yes, some people need to be shown how to do this instead of letting them try to figure it out on their own.

 

[JohnHammond]

Unfortunately, all of this effort to put some stats into gamers is like pissing upstream. Does little to develop writing skills on stories that will entice readers, and does not enhance a reporter's ability to report a story.

 

[PaperDoll]

Be thankful your new hire is at least motivated.

I'm still a little confused about how high school sports are available so broadly. Can't find that on "SportsCenter" most of the time. But we also don't go beyond a basic scoring summary for football, and no box scores anymore for anything else (except agate sports like swimming, track, tennis, etc.)

Does the kid need more practice doing features? Or feature-style gamers? That's the best way I know of telling the story of what happened with minimal stats. But stories like that require homework beforehand, quite possibly keeping one's own season-long stats if there aren't reliable sources available. (MaxPreps is essentially worthless around here.)

If there's something specific you want him to do (or not do), you've got to tell him, clearly and unequivocally. After all, you're the boss.

 

[MNgremlin]

If there's something specific you want him to do (or not do), you've got to tell him, clearly and unequivocally. After all, you're the boss.

This is maybe the most important thing said in this thread.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Unfortunately, all of this effort to put some stats into gamers is like pissing upstream. Does little to develop writing skills on stories that will entice readers, and does not enhance a reporter's ability to report a story.

Yep. Does exactly the opposite, in that it forces the reporter not to see the forest for the trees.

The full-on stats/running used to have value because it was teaching a reporter something to know for his/her entire career. But none of that is required anymore, from the low college level on up. I used to see old salts still charting NFL games in the press box in the early 2000s and I couldn't figure out why, since PXP and full stats came at the end of every quarter.

It's an anachronism and a sign of assigning editors who don't want to adapt, not a mark against a young reporter.