Not a Sports Report from an Empty Input: A Methodological Note and Reporting Template

Why No Sports Report Can Be Written from an Empty Input — A Methodological Note

1. What the input actually contains

The Stage-1 output is functionally empty across five of six fields: no title, no source, no article type, an empty one-sentence summary, no author stance, no stated purpose. The critical field, Information Points, is explicitly zero. The only surviving datum is Domain Label: cricket_asia, which fixes a topic range but carries no event, date, person, result, quotation or opinion.

Topic scope and information are not the same thing. A label tells you which door to knock on; it says nothing about what is behind it. Sports journalism depends on verifiable particulars: who played, when, where, the result, the statistics, the quotes, the sourcing.

1. Why guessing is not an option

Cricket reporting is easily falsified and therefore easily checked. A score, an over-by-over collapse, a batting figure, a bowling return — all are checkable. With zero information points, a writer is forced to invent. Invented scores and invented quotes are fiction wearing the clothes of news, and in a region where multiple series and leagues run simultaneously, false details spread fast and are hard to retract. The rule is simple: analyse when there is evidence, state plainly when there is none.

1. Minimum viable input

Three tiers. Best: the full text of the article, which allows extraction, context-building and deeper analysis. Second: a Stage-1 Information Points list of at least five to eight entries, each containing an entity, an action or data point, a time, and a source. Third: if the goal is only to exercise the workflow, a title, lede paragraph, source name and publication date suffice — with coarse analysis and explicit confidence levels attached to every claim.

1. The six-step workflow once input arrives

(1) Entity mapping: countries, institutions, players, competitions, timeframes, and the relations among them. (2) Layering fact from opinion: separate verifiable statements from the author's judgement. (3) Argument reconstruction: main claim, supporting evidence, implicit premise, opposing position. (4) Time-sensitivity tagging: which facts expire and when. (5) Source grading: first-tier official board, match-official and data-provider material; second-tier derivative reporting; third-tier unattributed sourcing, which must be flagged. (6) Confidence and gap disclosure: where evidence is absent, say so.

1. The reporting skeleton

Headline: the result or decision in one line, no adjectives. Sub-head: a single specific angle. Lede: who beat whom, where, when, by what margin. Second paragraph: the decisive passage of play. Third: principal performance with relevant statistics. Fourth: context — series standing or head-to-head record. Fifth: attributed quotation with name and role. Sixth: next fixture or series consequence. Final: what remains unconfirmed.

1. Language discipline

Precise terms, restrained adjectives, consistent number formatting. Use the correct cricket vocabulary and gloss it in English on first use in Bangla. Exercise restraint on injury, personal life and dressing-room speculation: any claim that cannot be verified does not belong in the report.

1. Pre-publication checklist

Every figure cross-checked against two independent sources? Every quote attributed with speaker, occasion and context? Dates attached to time-sensitive facts? Names matching the official squad list? Unconfirmed items disclosed to the reader?

1. Next step

Send the original text, or a minimum of five to eight information points carrying entity, action, time and source, and this skeleton becomes a full report. If Stage-1 output is language-mixed or the extraction pipeline silently failed, that failure is itself worth investigating: which step, which model, which prompt produced zero information points. Good reporting never comes from zero information points — only good intentions do.