ABSTRACT
No journalist has absolute freedom in any newsroom. But being a columnist writing personal commentary comes close to it. Sometimes, great service to readers comes from stepping back from the daily news flow and holding up for examination an overlooked item. Sports editors, in turn, employ columnists liberally, with metropolitan papers sometimes assigning two or three columnists to the same game, along with spot-news reporters. Broadly, two types of columns are popular in sports: Game columns are sidebar offerings in addition to the spot-news account or “game lead” and Fixture columns are published, say, three times weekly and are designed to attract groups of loyal readers, some of whom buy newspapers principally to read their favorite columnist. Spot-news reporters are assigned to write the game lead, the wrapup story on winners and losers. Game columnists have no such panoramic responsibility and thus are free to concentrate on examining key elements behind who won and who lost and, particularly, why.
