I'm often amazed at how little many national sportswriters appear to know about most players and teams. I realize that it would be nearly impossible to have as much knowledge on all 32 teams as a local beat writer does on just one team; I'm not expecting King or his colleagues to know as much or more than a guy like Mike Reiss does about the Pats. But on the other hand I expect more than what appears to be almost no preparation. It seems that the more well known these guys get and the further they are up the food chain that less and less time is done on research, while more and more time is spent in pre-show production meetings, pre-game roundtables with the executive producer, and marketing yourself and your employer by being on a sports talk radio show in every market at least once a week.
During the football season I can go on to the website of an upcoming opponent's local paper, read a few columns and blogs from their local beat writers, and typically get far more information on that team than I can from King and whoever he just got off the phone with. King and others like him are for the most part just parroting somebody else's opinions but doing little to no first-hand analysis. They serve a purpose, but it's just generic information for the casual fan in my opinion.
