Politics dude doesn't think WaPo's Nats writer can handle politics

It always amazes me how the news-side morons think they know so much more and are so much better at writing than sports guys. Yet in my experience, the news-side writers rarely out-perform the sports side writers.

From personal experience in this business, I've seen news writers attempt to cover sports and fail miserably. Yet, I've seen numerous sports writers transition to news or just cover a news story when needed and succeed beyond anyone's expectations. Try and stick some newsie on a football game on a Friday night and see what he comes back with. Do the same with a sports guy at a Monday night city council meeting and see what he brings back. I'll guarantee you, the sports guy produces the better work 99 percent of the time.

I don't know Chelsea, but I've seen her work. She'll be fine. And so what if political coverage has become a "horse race." Like that's a reason to say she can't cover it accurately. Hell, if anything, it shows that she probably understands it better than they do.

 

Chelsea Janes will change beats but will still find herself surrounded by Trumpists.

 

99 percent of the time? That’s extreme. Why do you think a sports guy is more equipped to cut through the detritus to find a narrative? From repetition?

More than following a sports team, following a city council or say a planning and zoning commission means not overplaying the narrative in my experience. Sports almost always has a discernible arc to the story, whereas municipal govt almost always ends in a TBD. Couching that ellipsis ain’t that easy

 

Many moons ago, one of the papers my shop at the time competed with would have reporters switch departments for a few weeks in the summer. The sports guys moving cityside did well. The newsies covering High-A baseball were a difficult read. Saw one of their dealers one night when we were both covering racing and asked about it. He looked at me and said, "you should have seen their raw copy."

 

Because sports entails everything in life that politics and news does, yet it includes the quest for a victory or the disappointment of defeat and the effects of either, which is what political coverage is evolving into.

It's because sports includes crime coverage, it includes hirings, firings, it includes administrative coverage, budgetary coverage, financial impact and financial loss stories. It includes life's greatest moments and life's lowest moments. It includes joy and heartache. It includes everything from feature writing to murder coverage. There isn't one thing that limits sports coverage. It's everything. That's what news idiots don't understand.

Unlike what the news morons think, sports is not just covering a fucking game that Schmuckville won 21-10 or writing a feature that says Johnny runs the football good. And you're damn right, 99 percent of the time and so fucking wrong about sports writing following an arc. For a gamer, sure, it follows an arc. For everything else, it's what news writers do and sports writers typically do it better.

Most newsies don't know their head from their ass when it comes to sports and the their news coverage is boring as fuck.

 

A number of years in the business has taught me that good sports reporters can move to news (whatever the beat might be) a hell of a lot easier than good news reporters can move to sports.

That subject came up when I interviewed for a news job at The Podunk Press, where I'd spent a few years previously as a sports writer. New metro editor (she wasn't there in my original go-around there) wanted to know why I had the audacity to think I could cover something that didn't involve a ball.

So I told her. Knew immediately I wasn't getting the job, but that was a blessing.

 

Only guy I can think of who successfully did the news to sports switch was Bob Hohler, who went from the Boston Globe’s D.C. bureau to covering the Red Sox.

 

Considering the 24-hour news cycle and the stick it on the web quick mentality in the industry - being able to synthesize a story quickly and write it in a cogent manner should be a premium. It always felt weird in news when I walked away from an unfinished story. I didn't do that much in sports. Sit, write, send (then maybe take a break, or go home).

 

And wasn't he the one who said covering the Red Sox entailed more pressure than working in D.C.?

 

She won’t have to leave her recent professional surroundings much. Trumpist Senators are having a retreat at Walgreens Park today.
Absolutely despicable franchise.

 

That editor sounds like an inexperienced twit. Most editors know that it’s not that difficult to cover hard news after covering sports, for many of the reasons previously mentioned.

While in college, I got an internship offer from a big paper to work on its metro desk. I was just a kid and didn’t think I could do it because I had never written anything other than sports. But the editors I interviewed with reminded me that I had written about athletes who had committed crimes, others who had been kicked out of school for academic violations, and had crafted features about players that barely mentioned the sport they played. Human stories. I took the internship and it was indeed much easier than I thought it would be. Had two A1 stories, too.

 

The sports writers I have worked with almost always excelled when filling in on news or making a career move.