Читать книгу Field Guide to Covering Sports - Joe Gisondi - Страница 21

Start with the most interesting story, not always with the winners or leaders. That story might include a key play, a trend, a significant stat, field conditions, post-game observations, or how this game affects the future. All key information about the event should be high in the story, but you don’t have to shoehorn it all into the first paragraph.

If a tennis player who’s been in a long slump played surprisingly well today, you can lead with that player’s story instead of the winner’s. If Jordan Spieth shoots a quadruple bogey on a par-3, that’s bigger news than Donny Willett leading by two strokes. A player returning from appendicitis or a heart transplant is a better story than simply reporting who leads in the opening rounds.

“Here’s a good rule of thumb,” says Doug Ferguson, golf beat writer for the Associated Press. “If you were to call a friend who asked you, ‘What happened at the golf tournament today?’ then your answer is probably the story.” Substitute the word game for golf tournament, and you’ll have almost foolproof advice for figuring out what’s important about any game. What would you tell a friend?

Every story has an infinite number of possible leads and approaches; no self-respecting writer works by formula. To start getting a sense of your options, read as many game stories as you can. Here are some ways to start your game stories:

Sports Insider: On Getting Unstuck on Deadline

I once was stuck as a young writer for a P.M. paper. Agonized over a lead for hours, literally. I took the office electric typewriter home with me. At long last the way out hit me. I wrote a straightforward lead, finished the story, and then went up and revised the lead. I haven’t had to do that since—maybe once or twice—but I vowed that day never to agonize over a lead again. Just write, and I have had few problems finding angles since. There’s always an angle, it’s just which one you pick and how you approach it.

Ed Bouchette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette