Things that bug sports journalists

I laugh at anyone who thinks "self-editing" is an actual thing.

 

I can understand all reporters make mistakes or miss stuff when going through their own material. It is difficult to catch stuff in your own copy.
But what reporter encourages others, tacitly or otherwsie, to not proof their own copy?

 

A better question would be what reporter does not do those things.

 

I once met with some students at my old college newspaper to give them the usual spiel, internships, clips, experience, bs, bs, bs. I'm walking out of the room and there was a kid sitting in the stairwell with his cellphone up against his tape recorder. Some guy was giving a quote and the kid is just sitting there waiting for the guy to stop talking. I'm not sure if he was even paying attention to what the dude was saying. a) Kid, learn how to take notes and b) actually pay attention to your interview. You might miss something that is going to need a follow up question.

 

I actually record my interviews, find that if I'm not scribbling notes furiously (that is, when I *could* before nerve damage made writing notes a problem), I can listen and follow up better.

 

I guess I just don't understand what you mean.

 

It just becomes accepted at some point. The places now that try to push for what they define as self-editing issue stupid memos with stupid procedures, and they have hired stupid people to enforce the stupid procedures. But the concept -- self-inflicted stupidity aside -- is a good one. But it will always be resisted by the dumb, lazy reporters already mentioned in this thread. They just don't give a shit about what they write.

 

A 38-0 game and no running clock because it hasn't broken that threshold.

 

Similarly, officials who insist on blowing the whistle for the heat timeout at exactly the 6-minute mark, no matter what's going on in the game.
Our state (it might be an NFHS rule) has a mandatory timeout at the halfway point of each quarter during early-season games. Some officials will be smart and, if the team is coming to the line with 6:05 left on the clock, let them run a play and then blow the whistle for the timeout. Or they'll blow it after the previous play if it's obvious the team won't run another play. Keeps things flowing.
Some are not smart and will wait until the team has huddled up and is walking to the line to blow the whistle. So you get a start-stop-start rhythm to the game that is annoying as hell.

 

For me it's high school bands that constantly play during games. I had two high school games this week due to the holiday weekend. At the one on Thursday, I was walking the visitors sideline so the band was on the other side of the field but had about 75 members and even played while their team had the ball. Was on the home side for Friday night's game and that school's band has about 110 members.

 

The only thing that bugged me about PR/SID folks was when they seemed almost totally disinterested in actually fulfilling that role. Didn't happen that often.

News reporters aren't really lazier. They're less well-informed, poorly trained, on tighter deadlines, and often tossed right into the skillet. Some have no idea what it's like to work through a story, or even make mistakes and get better. There is no process for improvement or savvy or learning on the job. And many young reporters have only a passing interest in digging into a beat without seeing it as a way of advancing somewhere else. The business is much shallower than it used to be. That's absolutely true.

On the sports beat, well, depends on the beat, but the pro stuff is run anymore by the agents, and you either kiss their ass and play their game or you're that lonely reporter who builds rapport slowly and brick by brick. Some editors have no patience for that, especially in the "insider" age of chasing Web clicks.

 

Parents coming by in person to see my editor asking for/demanding stories about their own kids.