Since when did the AP writers come from middle school?

We've debated this off and on in the past, but there seems to be more and more of this crap coming through the Associated Press.

I guess at least the AP writer who covered the Puerto Rico Tip-off was consistent.

Every freaking story was much like this excerpt:

Despite their struggles at times this week, Weber said he doesn't think they are that far away from being able to compete in conference play.
"They gotta understand we gotta get better and it's only going to come through practice and time in the gym," Weber said. "Little things gotta be important."

Gotta, gotta, gotta. All weekend. Really?

 

Incorrect pronoun/antecedent.

 

Other writers who come from middle school:

Mark Twain
John Steinbeck

 

Minus well be consistent, for all intensive purposes.

 

This is way, WAY down on the list of things wrong with the AP.

 

I have a feeling the AP's best basketball writers might not be manning the San Juan office.

 

This is the problem with trying to use accents/dialect/casual pronunciation - whatever you want to call it.
Why use 'gotta' but not use 'gonna'?

 

We coulda and we woulda but I dunno if we shoulda.

 

It's not just basketball, and likely not just the AP.

On Fox Sports' story regarding the Patriots-Broncos game, this nugget:

"I gotta do a better job of getting up there and getting those guys out of the way and making sure it doesn't hit them. I gotta get to him earlier and tell him, and get those guys out of the way if I'm not going to make the catch. I was a little bit in between, and you can't be that way."

 

That's kinda unprofessional.

 

It's gotta be.

 

A buncha wannabes