Great analysis, Associated Press. By the way, what was the score??

One of journalism’s most venerable clichés is the one about the sportswriter who produces a brilliant analysis of a game but doesn’t tell the final score. That’s what happens when a reporter tries to show how smart he or she is but forgets to report the basics. Associated Press reporter Emily Wagster Pettus fell into this trap with an article published Nov. 28, 2018.

The article reports the results of a Mississippi U.S. Senate runoff election in which Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith defeated Democrat Mike Espy. The race drew national attention over a remark by Hyde-Smith that could be viewed as racially offensive. The article includes a review of Hyde-Smith’s controversial remark, quotes from the winner, the loser, and President Trump, and various other background information, but there’s nary a mention of the vote total in the version published in my hometown newspaper. Nor was the vote total given in the version posted on the AP web site early that morning. Fortunately for the AP, their editors caught the oversight several hours after the article was first released and inserted the vote count in the online version. https://www.apnews.com/b7d5dfadd2b44d3da537376ff57d7ff4

Two other Associated Press writers, Jeff Amy and Janet McConnaughey, contributed to the article. Between these three ace reporters, didn’t one of them think to ask, “Hey, what was the vote count?” Didn't the editors who first reviewed the article ask that question? You’d expect this type of amateurish reporting from a small-town newspaper, but not the Associated Press, which bills itself “The definitive source for news.”