John Fay is clueless

[dougdirt]

You should absolutley cater to your readers. If you fail to write to your target audience you won't be successful as a reporter.

I don't think Fay is clueless, I think he is pretty knowledgable on the Reds. But the vast majority of his readers haven't heard of fangraphs so Fay has little reason to dive into that area.

Pandering to stupidity doesn't do anyone any good. The reason his readers don't know anything is because the writers don't tell them anything. That isn't his fault alone. There are a bunch of guys out there who do the same thing. The guy before Fay did it. The guy before that guy too. And so on.

Start introducing things little by little. Eventually, your readers are going to pick up on things and be better for it.

Joe Posnanski was just named the National Sportswriter of the Year for 2011. That guy may have won it because he is one of the best story tellers in the business, sports or otherwise, but he is also a guy who delves into stats. Big time.

Of course we can take that award with a little grain of salt because Hal McCoy won the Ohio Sportswriter of the Year award and that guy makes me want to rip my hair from my skull.

At the end of the day though, the Enquirer is the only game in town as far as newspapers go. If he doesn't pander to his readers ignorance, and it is ignorance because they simply don't know, not that they can't understand if someone explained it, and they still don't like it, where are they going to go? People who still read the newspaper are not going to go out looking for other options.

[Roy Tucker]

My complaint about Fay has always been he is a paint-by-numbers kind of writer. All very formulaic and does just what is expected. No zip, no zing, no imagination, no real insight. Nothing that I couldn't get by reading ESPN or SI. Any college educated journalist could do what he does.

Every other Reds beat writer that I can think of has been better than him. And I go back a long way. I'm sure he's a nice guy, but I don't think much of his writings.

[RichRed]

My complaint about Fay has always been he is a paint-by-numbers kind of writer. All very formulaic and does just what is expected. No zip, no zing, no imagination, no real insight. Nothing that I couldn't get by reading ESPN or SI. Any college educated journalist could do what he does.

Every other Reds beat writer that I can think of has been better than him. And I go back a long way. I'm sure he's a nice guy, but I don't think much of his writings.

Exactly. Every time I read one of his articles, I imagine a guy typing at his computer, half asleep. Just completely uninspiring.