Sports reporting

Some years ago I met a veteran sports writer, now dead. Frank, as I shall call him, told me the following story. He began his newspaper career working with Neville Cardus, the great cricket writer, up in Manchester, and on this particular occasion they were writing up an interview Cardus had done with some fine old northern professional cricketer, full of the wryly amusing comments that Cardus loved to hear and record from these people. But Frank experienced some qualms. "Mister Cardus", he protested, "I was at the interview, and he never said anything like that!"
"I know", Cardus replied, "A lot of these professional sportsmen aren't very articulate, so I put down what I think they'd have liked to have said!"

I think this is an excellent way of approaching things. I wonder how many reporters today follow the same principle?