Sportswriter

A sportswriter is a print journalist whose specialty is covering sporting events. In the 19th century and until the final years of the 20th century, any respectable newspaper employed at least one sportswriter to cover local teams and sporting meetings, and larger ones had a large dedicated team. This sometimes included dedicated baseball writers who covered only baseball, including the beat writer whose job was to cover the daily happenings of the local baseball team, but in many cases writers covered more than one sport even if they sometimes had greater expertise in one particular sport. With the decline of local newspapers, more and more game stories tend to be written by sportswriters who belong to a news agency (e.g. The Associated Press), and in the case of minor league games, they can sometimes be machine-generated.

Sportswriters can also work for magazines or be free-lancers. They generally work from the press box, but also have access to the clubhouse where they can interview participants in the game.

The Baseball Writers Association of America is the professional association for sportswriters for whom baseball coverage is a specialty. The BBWAA Career Excellence Award (formerly the J.G. Taylor Spink Award), is the foremost award recognizing their work.

See also

• Writers