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Are You a Sports Reporter? |
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by Dan Veaner
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Friday, 03 July 2009 |
Editor's Note: Sports are so important to the Lansing community that I want to make sure this offer is seen, so we'll be repeating this article from time to time.  By the numbers we know our readers love to read about Lansing sports. During the Varsity season the Sports page is as popular as our News and Around Town pages. But with one staff reporter for all topics in our small publication the only way we can cover sports at all is if volunteer writers send in reports.
We would love to expand our sports coverage to reports on club sports, more Rec Department sports news, and other schools that Lansing students attend, such as Ithaca High School or New Roots High School. Contributors don't have to be coaches. In fact the Star welcomes contributors of all ages from students to seniors. The great benefit of having a parent, a student, or any interested person writing about a sport is that you speak the language of the sport and therefore you can connect to readers much better than our one harried reporter ever could do.
Writing a sports article doesn't have to be hard. While we do work with a style guide the basics are simple:
- Write in the third person.
- Make the first paragraph the most interesting to draw readers to read the rest.
- Always include the game score and the season score.
- Avoid hype (don't use exclamation points!!!)
- Don't use ALL CAPS in any words except acronyms (like IAC)
- Get quotes if you can.
- Use full words, not abbreviations. Don't use @ for at.
- Spell out numbers below 10 (except in scores). Otherwise use numbers 23, not 'twenty-three'.
- Use an athlete's full name the first time you mention him or her. After that just use the last name (unless there are more than one with the same last name).
- Don't ask the reader for something, and don't congratulate the team.
- Include a picture or two if you can.
- Most of all, think about the countless sports articles you have read and use them as a guide.
Our writing guidelines can always be easily found at http://www.lansingstar.com/news
The many Varsity coaches that have contributed to the Star have been outstanding in this regard. And individual contributors like Mary Grainger (our stalwart Ithaca Shooting Stars hockey reporter), Bruce Barber, Joyce Jones, Alison King, Dawn Kleschulte, Luke Kutler and many wonderful others who have contributed over the years have provided amazing in-depth coverage of Lansing athletes. The Lansing Star is also grateful to Geoff Wright, who has generously advertised on our Sports page since the Star began publishing, just to support sports in Lansing.
Coverage in the Star gives our hard working athletes the recognition they deserve, and your contributions make them and you stars in the community. For students the opportunity to be published in a local professional newspaper is valuable when you are compiling your resume to get into college, or looking for a job. For parents its a way to showcase your kids and their teammates. For any Lansing sports fan it's a great expression of your love for sports.
If you are interested in covering any Lansing Sport please drop the editor a note (click here). The more sports news we get, the better our readers will like it.
The only exception is Junior Varsity sports. The Lansing Athletic Director has asked us to focus on Varsity teams only with the thought that JV players have less maturity and stories about athletes of that age might be hurtful. However club sports of any kind and any agegroup are most welcome.
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