how to write a sports article for a newspaper

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How to Read Newspaper Articles Online

Nowadays, many people prefer to get their news online. But with so much information available online, it’s more important than ever to get your news from reputable sources. For some people, that means relying on traditional newspaper outlets. Luckily, plenty of newspapers offer content online. Here’s how to access it.

The New York Times Newspaper

If you want to access The New York Times newspaper online, the good news is that you have a monthly allotment of free articles. However, if you’re a consistent reader, you should look into its subscription options. These include the “Basic Subscription,” which offers unlimited access to articles on any of your devices. You can also opt to add the “Cooking Subscription” or the digital access plus print subscription.

The website is laid out very intuitively, with the home page acting much like the front page of the paper. You can access content online and also through its app.

The Los Angeles Times Newspaper

The Los Angeles Times newspaper offers users three free articles per month on its site. After that, you must sign up for one of its subscriptions. The subscription is billed monthly and gives you unlimited access to all of the content. There are also other bonuses to signing up for a digital subscription, like receiving the Daily eNewspaper, which is just like the print paper but online, plus the chance to add home delivery options. And if you already pay for a regular paper delivery, digital access is included.

The Sunday Times Newspaper

The Sunday Times and The Times offer subscription-based access to online content. One subscription covers both papers, plus access to video content, crosswords and everything in the archive spanning 200 years.

The Seattle Times Newspaper

Reading The Seattle Times newspaper online requires a subscription that is billed weekly. There are several options available, including unlimited digital access. It also offers a package that gives you online access plus physical delivery of just the Sunday paper. That’s a bonus for coupon lovers. Others can opt for a digital and seven-day paper delivery subscription. The digital access includes a copy of the daily paper’s “Print Replica,” which mimics the paper copy.

Free Newspaper Articles Online

If you’re looking for free newspaper articles online, the best way to start is by doing a search on Google News for your keyword. If you gather your news from various sources, the free quota of articles may be enough to help keep yourself informed throughout the month. Some sites offer completely free articles, which are often local newspapers or sites like The Telegraph and The Guardian .

In Module 4 you will find:

Writing hard news articles

Writing soft news articles, what is plain language .

According to communications scholar Richard Wydick, plain language is “clear, concise and correct” communication. It avoids jargon and delivers its message simply but effectively so that the reader gets the message as quickly as possible.

Above all, however, plain language is about meeting your readers’ needs, so you need to identify what you know about them. How much detail do they want? Are they busy or will they be browsing your article for pleasure? How much knowledge do they have about your sport and/or your subject matter?

Once you know your audience, use both the content of your article and its structure to deliver your message. Here are some simple ways to make your writing meet plain language standards:

The two types of articles

Hard news is read quickly, so the most important facts must come first. In journalism school, they call this the “ inverted pyramid ”. The first paragraph contains the most important information (who, what, where, when, why, how) and the following paragraphs add an increasing level of detail. The reader could read just the first paragraph and come away with a good idea of what happened.

The lede, or first sentence, is the most crucial part of the article. Your lede should concisely tell the reader who, what, where, when, why and how. For example, “The Chesterville Cheetahs beat the Brownville Bruins 54-52 to win the 2015 Bob Smith Memorial Basketball Championship yesterday.” Your lede should feel complete but not crowded, so it’s okay to split your lede into two sentences to ensure that it flows nicely.

If your lede is effective, writing the rest of the article will come easily. Keep building details and background information, including quotes, until you have succinctly summarized the event. Make sure to keep your paragraphs short for maximum readability.

A hand writing: find your voice, express yourself, creating writing

In the soft news article, you are not bound by the traditional rules of journalism. While a hard news story is meant to be read quickly, a soft news story is in no such hurry. Many sports writers use the form to step back and examine a trend or a larger issue within the sport or delve deep into an interesting person’s life. When done well, soft news articles can inspire, motivate and teach.

Soft stories are usually longer and sometimes even use techniques found in fiction. If creative writing isn’t one of your skills, however, don’t worry. In the sports world, a soft news piece could be a simple interview with an athlete, an opinion piece about a rule change, or a how-to article on how to select the best piece of equipment. It could even be a Buzzfeed-style list.

Often, the success of the soft news article rests on how interesting your “characters” are, so a good story starts with a good interview. For tips on how to conduct an interview, read our toolkit module on sports interviews . For an example of a good use of quotes, check out this article on wheelchair rugby’s Zak Madell by Vancouver Sun journalist Gary Kingston. He uses Madell and his mother’s own words to tell the story, but shapes the narrative with his personal insights.

Here are some tips to help you write a strong soft article:

By following a few simple writing techniques, you can write articles that will engage your audience and deliver your organization’s message more effectively. In the next module, we’ll build on the skills we’ve learned and apply them to writing for the web. Do you have a question about writing articles? Do you have a best practice we didn’t mention? Get in the conversation by emailing [email protected] or tweeting @ViaSportBC .

Download as a PDF:

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http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/journalism1/journalism-writing-the-hard-news-story

https://collegejournalism.wordpress.com/2008/07/15/hard-news-vs-soft-news

http://grammarist.com/usage/lead-lede/

http://www.plainlanguage.gov/howto/quickreference/checklist.cfm

http://www.komarketingassociates.com/images/2014/09/news_writing_inverted_pyramid.jpg

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Madell+used+rough+tumble+with+video/6821458/story.html

http://senateshj.com/news/top-tips-soft-news-tv#.VcAtyZNViko

http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/grammar-rules-and-tips/tips-on-writing-a-news-report.html

How to Write a Sports Article

Sports writing can take the form of a news piece that reports on a recent game or a feature article that profiles a team or player. By appealing to both sports fans and other readers, sports articles capture emotions and action through interviews and descriptions while also presenting objective statistics about the subject. Regardless of the topic, good sports writing combines strong research with vivid detail to bring the personalities and drama of athletics to life.

Craft an Eyecatching Opening

Your lead paragraph should grab the audience's attention and reveal the article's genre to readers. If you're writing a feature article about a team or player, you might open with a sentence that reveals something about the subject's accomplishments or personality. For example, you can give a physical description of the person, use a quote from the coach or player or paint a picture of what it's like to watch the team play. By contrast, a news article about a sporting event might use the inverted pyramid structure, where the piece opens by telling readers who won the game, then gives highlights and details in subsequent paragraphs.

Find the Story

While the majority of your readers probably will be sports fans, a good sports article offers a human interest link that will draw in other readers as well. Look for a narrative that will appeal to readers' emotions. If the team you're profiling is experiencing their first season after the loss of a star player, for example, the story might be how they're forging a new identity for themselves. Similarly, a news article about a game might use vivid detail to describe the most significant moments. Although readers may know key pieces of information, such as who won and why the star player left, clear description and emotion will nonetheless hook readers' interests.

Use Direct Quotes

Some of the most important research you'll do for your sports article will be the interviews you conduct with the players and coaches. Poignant, well-placed quotes from a variety of sources can create a fuller, richer portrait of the team and illustrate their personalities for readers. To gain specific, detailed responses rather than brief answers, ask your subject questions that begin or end with "why," such as why the coach called a particular play, or why he believes his team is better than last season. Building trust and rapport with your interview subjects also is vital to gaining honest responses. Try holding the interview in a quiet place where you can have a one-on-one conversation rather than around other players or coaches.

Avoid Cliches

Using cliche expressions instead of original, vivid language can drain a powerful sports story of its energy and lose readers' interests. Rather than resorting to tired expressions like "gave it their all, "blazing speed" and words like "athleticism," come up with fresh ways to showcase the team's perseverance and skill. The use of certain verbs also can be cliche in sports writing, such as "slam-dunk" for basketball and "scored" for soccer. Instead of using the action words readers expect, bring new life to your piece by finding verbs that vividly capture the game's activity.

Give Statistics

While audiences read sports articles for the inside story behind a game or the details of a player's life, they'll also expect concrete data about their favorite teams' scores and records. If you're writing a feature article about a soccer player, for example, you'll want to present the average number of goals he scores per game, while a recap of a track meet might include the winners as well as their racing times. At the same time, avoid using complex jargon related to a particular sport that might confuse readers who aren't well-versed in its vocabulary. Be as specific as possible while still making the information accessible to all readers.

Kori Morgan holds a Bachelor of Arts in professional writing and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing and has been crafting online and print educational materials since 2006. She taught creative writing and composition at West Virginia University and the University of Akron and her fiction, poetry and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals.

How to Write a Sports Article

Last Updated: March 5, 2023 References

wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 14 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 84,223 times. Learn more...

For many aspiring journalists and writers, as well as seasoned veterans, sporting events provide a fruitful ground for practicing their craft. Sports are exciting, familiar, popular, unpredictable, and always happening somewhere. Be they for newspapers or websites or blogs, there are several typical forms of sports articles, from straight-up event recaps to feature profiles. Regardless of article type or sport covered, there are several methods, “do's" and “don’t's", and examples that can help someone who is new to sports writing.

Tackling Your Topic and Style

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Search websites for classic and modern examples of exceptional sports writing. [3] X Research source

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When you’re starting out, if you have the choice, cover the sport you know best. Master writing effectively about it before moving on to less familiar sports.

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Shooting for a Successful Sports Recap Article

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Local sporting events are a good place to start for an aspiring sportswriter. You’ll find passionate fans/parents, eager participants, and a good environment for covering a sporting event from several angles.

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Leads focus on the 5 “W’s” and “H” (who, what, when, where, why, and how). In a sports context, the score is always a great place to start. For example: “Last night in Falcon park, the air as crisp as winning quarterback Joe Smith’s passes, the Redview Falcons stunned the first-place Washington Coyotes in overtime, 56 to 54.”

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Scoring with Other Kinds of Sports Articles

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If you are covering your alma mater in a basketball game or interviewing a pro golfer who happens to be a childhood hero, let your fan-dom be revealed. Sports are about passion, enthusiasm, and often silly biases. Be impartial with the facts but let readers see you as a sports fan as well as sports writer.

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For example, draw from interviews to place the reader at the foul line with the game on the line: “As she looked at the basket, trying desperately to block out the crowd behind it and the emptiness in front, Jane Davis could swear she caught a glimpse of her old garage wall holding up the hoop, felt the crumbling driveway beneath her feet, and sensed her Dad at her side.”

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Community Q&A

About This Article

To write a sports article, start by writing a short, catchy lead, or opening sentence, that mentions the final score and introduces key information that will compel the reader to go deeper into the article. Next, cover essential information like team names, the location of the game, the standout players, and a few other highlights. Then, sprinkle in a couple of quotes from the coaches or players and finish up by covering some of the important plays and any other interesting details. For tips on taking good notes at the game, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Writing contests, make money writing, hottest topics, how to write a sports report in 4 steps.

News writing style is just as important for sports reporting as it is for general news, business stories or any other journalistic work.

The advantage of sports writing is that you are allowed a little it more leeway in your choice of words. In crime or business writing, you are restricted in your use of adjectives and adverbs and are encouraged to focus more on nouns and verbs. Sports writing, however, allows you to go to town in describing plays, the atmosphere, fans and other colorful aspects of a sporting event.

Using quotes in Sports Reports

Ideally, any sports story would have quotes from the winners and losers. Indeed, many sports articles are written around what athletes say rather than what they have achieved on the field of play.

However, you also have sports articles written without quotes. When rookies learn how to write like a journalist, especially in sport, they are likely to come across the structure that we will show you here.

We will adapt the NBA game between Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers on April 1 as our example article.

The most important news aspect of a sports game is the score. Who won? How did they win and what effect did the victory have? Also important is whether we are writing from a Boston perspective or Cleveland. In this case, we will go with Cleveland.

“Cleveland Cavaliers lost 98-96 to the Boston Celtics after Delonte West’s sank two free throws in the final seconds, dropping three and a half games behind the Pistons for the best record in the Eastern Conference.”

2. More info

The above is enough for those who have a passing interest in the sport. However, NBA fans would want more information and you could give it to them in one or two paragraphs.

“The Cavaliers were without star player LeBron James, suffering from a knee injury, while the Celtics were minus Paul Pierce. Gerald Green led the way for Celtics with 25 points while Kendrick Perkins had 12 points and nine rebounds.

The Cavaliers, for whom Larry Hughes scored 24 with Sasha Pavlovic scoring 17, have already qualified for the play-offs while Boston are out of the running.”

This is where you can provide a quote from the coach or a key player from both teams. You can precede each saying with a lead-in paragraph or go straight into the quote.

“Celtic forward Al Jefferson, said: ‘They were missing their best player and we were missing our best play. We just stuck in there.’

Cavs coach Mike Brown said James’ absence was a key factor in their loss.

‘We miss LeBron. We miss LeBron every time he doesn’t play. He’s our guy,’ said Brown.”

4. The rest

Once you got the main information and key quotes out of the way, you can go on to describe the game. Even better would be to describe just one or two plays and include more quotes.

The thinking behind sports articles is that people would have watched the game on TV anyway and would not want boring game description. Therefore, quotes from the people who matter, such as athletes and coaches, would offer better reading value.

There are many types of sports news writing that is offered around the world everyday. We have merely showed you its simplest form. Certainly, it is a rewarding form of news writing for journalists who love their sport. And the structure they use allow them to adapt their skills to any type of journalism writing.

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by Yen Cabag | 33 comments

Sports writing plays a huge role in stirring up expectations and giving fans the information they crave about the people behind their favorite sport.

What Is Sports Writing in Journalism?

Sports writing is a form of creative nonfiction or journalism that covers sports, athletes, or other sports-related issues. A journalist who reports on sports is called a sportswriter.

Glenn Stout, editor of The Best American Sports Writing 2015 , describes a good sports story as one that “provides an experience that… takes you from one place you’ve never been before and by the end leaves you in another place, changed.”

In the introduction to the 2012 edition of The Best American Sports Writing , Michael Wilbon says that the best sports stories are those that come from conversations, and not from formal interviews. These people may be reluctant or poor conversationalists, but they often turn out the best stories.

What Are the Elements of Sports Writing?

Sports writing typically covers basic information, such as:

But in order to write a good sports article, remember to focus on what an athlete does. Because sports revolve around the drama of competition, spotlighting a single person gives your story a human side that your readers can relate to.

5 Types of Sports Stories

The following are the five most common types of sports stories:

1. Straight-Lead Game Story

The most basic form of all sportswriting, the straight-lead (also spelled straight-lede) game story is an article using a straight-news format. The article summarizes the main points of a game: which team won or lost, the final score, and what a star player did.

A straight-lead might look something like this:

Second-string quarterback Robert Jameson threw the game-winning touchdown with just 10 seconds left to lead the Mountain View High School Bears to a 21-14 victory over the Canyon del Oro High School Captains Saturday night.

After that, the story follows by giving an account of big plays, players who contributed tremendously to the final outcome, and after-game insights, quoting both players and coaches.

Many high school and college sports use the straight-lead game story, but sports writers for professional sports events have veered away from this format.

The reason is that TV already shows the entire game and fans usually know the scores and highlights before the article makes it to publication.

2. Feature Game Story

The feature game story is a favorite tool for professional sports writers because it gives fans and readers a different angle from the highlights they have seen on TV.

Here’s an example of an actual sports feature lead involving the Queensland Reds and their rugby coach, Tevita Koloi :

It’s the start of yet another season. The quiet of the night contrasts with the vibrant group gathered in the upper room of their local church, fervently praying. As the clock ticks closer towards midnight, the spiritual coach of the state’s professional rugby team receives an impression from God – “the last placed team he is mentoring will win the entire league this very year.” It is a bold revelation, and he grapples with what to do with this.

After opening with this unique angle, the writer proceeds to describe the prominent rugby coach’s background, as well as what was going on at the time he had this unusual experience.

And, as is common trait of feature game stories, he only gets to the scores near the end of the article—which is fine because readers are not looking to read about the score, which they already know.

Instead, the story gives them a different perspective of the game and the people involved.

3. Profiles

Whereas a feature game story spotlights a game, a profile features an individual character. This person might be a rookie athlete rising in the ranks, or perhaps an influential coach.

To show you the difference between a feature game story and a profile, here is an example of a real-life personality profile opening of the same rugby coach Tevita Koloi :

He stood on the bridge, pondering how everything in his life had gone wrong. After several years of depression, disappointment, abuse and separation, he had reached the end of his rope and was ready to end it all. He closed his eyes, readying himself to take this irreversible step. At that very moment, he heard a seemingly innocuous noise from below, “Beep-beep! Beep-beep!” He opened his eyes and reached into his pocket for his phone, intending to read this message before he went forward with his tragic plan. The words he read, sent from an acquaintance he was not even particularly close to, shocked him out of his stupor: “Jesus loves you. He will never leave you. Receive His love.”

The story then proceeds to describe his battle with depression and suicide, and how he used the same thing that saved him, text messaging, to help others in the sports world.

4. Season Preview and Wrap-up Stories

Every sportswriter needs season previews and wrap-up stories in their collection. These stories are published while the coaches and their teams are preparing for the upcoming season, or after the season has ended—whether in victory or in defeat.

These stories take a bird’s eye view of the season: they normally share the expectations that coaches and players have, or how they feel at the end of a season.

A fictional example of a lead for this kind of story is:

Coach Sandy Miller has high hopes for the Bannerview High School women’s volleyball team this year. With the Royals being the county champions last year, led by dynamic team captain Serena Delgado, who continues to lead the team this year as a senior. “We believe she’ll bring the team to greater heights this year,” Coach Miller says.

5. Columns

A sportswriting column is the place where a sportswriter shares their opinion. Sometimes these columns may include venting when a team, player, or coach doesn’t meet expectations. Other times, they may write about what they admire in a team, player or coach.

A favorite subject is a coach who is able to direct a weak team to an unexpected championship, or perhaps an underdog player who demonstrates unusual determination and teamwork.

Here is an excerpt of a column from The Sports Column :

For me, head-to-head competition is the most significant indicator for seeding, but not to EIWA coaches. When coaches use rules/regulations to protect their interests, then athletes suffer. To make a three-time All-American–a proven wrestler–a 4-seed behind an opponent he has defeated…well…that’s bad for everybody. And to make things worse, the only other seeded wrestler who has qualified for the Nationals (Jared Prince of Navy), is seeded #5, opposite Kolodzik. None of the other six seeds have had such success this year.

Sports Writing Examples

The best sports writers are able to convey the sense of awe readers feel when watching a game.

However, sports writing is not limited to simply describing a game: it may also profile an athlete or unveil important news surrounding a key character in a sport, such as reports of abuse.

Example #1. From “ Roger Federer as Religious Experience ” (2006) by David Foster Wallace:

A top athlete’s beauty is next to impossible to describe directly. Or to evoke. Federer’s forehand is a great liquid whip, his backhand a one-hander that he can drive flat, load with topspin, or slice — the slice with such snap that the ball turns shapes in the air and skids on the grass to maybe ankle height. His serve has world-class pace and a degree of placement and variety no one else comes close to; the service motion is lithe and uneccentric, distinctive (on TV) only in a certain eel-like all-body snap at the moment of impact. His anticipation and court sense are otherworldly, and his footwork is the best in the game.