Thread: Boston Media: The Fellowship of the Miserable

Pretty interesting article.
The Fellowship of the Miserable: How Boston Sportswriters Got So Awful

Some of the same points brought up in the article could be said of our little hamlet on the prairie.

At TwinsFest this weekend there was (for the first time in at least many years) a panel of beat writers, Mason (FSN), Bollinger (MLB.com) Neal (Strib), and Mackey (1500ESPN). Their general story was that the medium and the audience dictate what they can write and how they write it. Neal said basically "I'd love to print a slash line" (avg/obp/slg) but he can't because so many readers don't know what that is, so he has to stick to avg, hr, and rbi. I think he and others in the "mainstream" media could do more to educate their readers and get them on board with more "advanced" statistics. Mackey gets more into advanced stats principally because he is on the web (according to him). Mackey also described using the stats to ask more informed questions of those in the know including coaches and players. The stats he uses to ask the question don't necessarily end up in the column but I think this is what is not being done in this market (and probably others). Neal and Mackey dominated the comments of the panel, however Bollinger and Mason echoed the line of not being able to because they wanted to keep the columns availabile for all audiences.