"I" in game reports

[dooley_womack1]

"I heart April O'Neil. I was thinking how I would show her that was so while waiting out the 30-minute rain delay that occurred during Barry Zito's attempt at a perfect game. April O'Neill...sigh."

 

[Write-brained]

Why, again are newspapers in trouble?

Because they often hire dunces who come cheap and have little knowledge or respect of the craft or history of journalism, and little actual appreciation of the great writers who came before them.

Instead, they waltz around actively TRYING to write like Hunter S. Thompson (REAL non-trendy choice you made there, slick) or Gary Smith, or Bill Plaschke, or (attention: quality drop approaching) Bill Simmons, or Scoop Jackson, or any other writer their buddies say is cool. They spend more time thinking that imitating these people is a good idea than they do trying to create their own voice within the context of trying to be a journalist/storyteller, not a story.

I don't completely agree with this or maybe I do but it needs clarification. I know when I first started out, I tried a couple of times to incorporate some of Gary Smith's writing styles or ideas (not his prose) into my stories. Once it worked. Once it failed miserably. I actually think it's a good idea to emulate several writers, try their ideas and eventually your own voice will come out of that. That's why one of the best pieces of advice is to read good stories, in hopes of picking some of it up.

Wasn't it Hunter S. who would type his favorite authors' stories over and over in hopes of picking up their style and voice ... that's an idea of his you can copy if you must ...

 

[Ace]

I don't understand. Why you are ripping this poor kid? Why shouldn't he be allowed to use the letter 'i' in game stories? Even a capital 'I?'

I mean, if Irving Ignacius scored the winning touchdown, he'd look pretty stupid. Wouldn't he?

Case closed.

You people!

 

[reformedhack]

... but our competitor does.

Am I the only one curious to know which hunk-of-crap newspaper this is? Wouldn't you just love to revel in the horridity of it all? OK, I admit I also slow down to look at car wrecks, so ...

 

[dooley_womack1]

I don't understand. Why you are ripping this poor kid? Why shouldn't he be allowed to use the letter 'i' in game stories? Even a capital 'I?'

I mean, if Irving Ignacius scored the winning touchdown, he'd look pretty stupid. Wouldn't he?

Case closed.

You people!

Outing alert: Ace is really Ross Perot.

 

[txsportsscribe]

>>>this reporter<<<

please tell me this is a joke. someone cashing a paycheck (or unrolling the nickels) in 2007 is doing this?

 

[Bob Loblaw Law Blog]

You seriously think there is no better way to describe the game conditions than by devoting an entire graf to your socks?

You're a ****ing moron.

 

[Mystery_Meat]

>>>this reporter<<<

please tell me this is a joke. someone cashing a paycheck (or unrolling the nickels) in 2007 is doing this?

Two people did it that I saw. One was a volunteer freelancer at a weekly. I caught it while proofing the news section and overhauled the entire thing. The other was an SE. I didn't have the power to fix that one though.

 

[Bob Loblaw Law Blog]

I've seen writers try to jam "this reporter" or "I" into gamers, but they were all stringers or interns who had almost no writing experience.

 

[EStreetJoe]

The referee made what I thought was a lousy call.


That's how you incorrectly work I into a story.

 

[Mighty_Wingman]

Podunk High scored 10 unanswered points to close out Podunk County Tuesday night in a battle of unbeatens.

Man, I'm hungry.

Joe Blow led Podunk with 12 points.

****

Now that's how you incorrectly work "I" into a story.

 

[Write-brained]

Oh, I've got a good one I forgot all about. ;D

When I was in college we had a sports reporter, "Bob", who repeatedly tried to squeeze in quotes like this .. "I've said it before, Bob, we're not going to win games playing defense like that ... " or "That's a good question, Bob, I do think we need to stop the run ..."

 

[shotglass]

Oh, I've got a good one I forgot all about. ;D

When I was in college we had a sports reporter, "Bob", who repeatedly tried to squeeze in quotes like this .. "I've said it before, Bob, we're not going to win games playing defense like that ... " or "That's a good question, Bob, I do think we need to stop the run ..."

I might have had to make a physical point with Bob.

 

[ripthejacker]

No-**** link to a recent game report (not column) by our "competitor."

http://www.times-standard.com/sports/ci_5406962

And there were many, many others like it. Think it's calmed down since there were a few nasty remarks about that style, but those stories exist and we get to read them and laugh every day.

So I think I'm pretty much done playing devil's advocate for putting "I" in game reports. Didn't expect to have to defend myself as much as exchange ideas about writing game reports.

"****ing moron?"

I think you're projecting a bit

Never said it's the only way to describe a game, just said there are other ways we could do it other than the inverted pyramid <--, especially for small, local papers where stories are not cut and the primary readers are often those who attended the games and are looking to get a fix of the excitement they experienced the night before.

 

[Mystery_Meat]

BW: I'm okay with it. A lot of us were calling BS on someone doing first-person gamers, and he gave up proof. Remember, he *wants* to write like them, or at least write in first person like them.

I'm not one for indiscriminate bashing of small-town writers without the means with which to defend themselves, but the linked story doesn't do anything to weaken the case that first-person is utterly inappropriate in a gamer.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

Re: \"I\" in game reports

BUMBLE**** -- There is no I in team. Not in gamer either.








How did I do?

 

[reformedhack]

There are so many things wrong with the writing in that piece that using "I" might be the least worrisome.

Thanks, rip, for posting it so we can see for ourselves. I don't know about the rest of you, but I ... just ... can't ... turn ... my ... eyes ... away ...

 

[Montezuma's Revenge]

"As I was picking up a pencil, Barry Bonds hit career homer No. 756 last night."

Barry Bonds hit career homer No. 756 while I was taking a dump, but I'm told it was a monumental blast to right field. To make matters worse, as I was taking the dump I noticed I had huge skid marks. Bummer.

 

[Ace]

Rip,

You seem a teensy bit defensive. And, for the record, there is a lot of ground between "inverted pyramid" and inserting yourself into a gamer.

For example, if the game was thrilling, you could -- oh, I don't know -- put the word "thrilling" in the game story rather than the sentence "I thought the game was thrilling."

This reporter is all for writers sprinkling opinion and analysis in game stories and long as they keep their Cheez-It covered selves out of there.

 

[Ike Broflovski]

Honest to God, I've covered hundreds of games over the years, and I've never heard a team or its fans collectively exhale. I'd like to be there when it finally does happen, though. That would be like a hurricane!

I think the original poster's idea has been slapped down pretty hard by other people, and I'm in the majority. But I'm wondering if we don't like it because we've never seen it done well. (I don't count Hunter S. Thompson. He wasn't writing for the next day. And I think the example posted here was not a very good one.)

Just because it hasn't been done well means it can't be done well. I don't think I want it to become a trend, but I don't want to rule it out, either. (I don't know if they still do this, but I thought it was interesting when the Globe and Mail would have a little box that would rate games, like movies.) We seem to do a lot of things in the newspaper biz just because they've always been done that way.

A mentor once told me to cover a game, or an event, as if I was seated in the last row, or the rafters, and I could describe the scene to my readers. I've never done that in first person. But I don't want to say I'd never do it, know what I mean? A game story has a fairly significant amount of subjective review in it already. When will someone cross the line, successfully?