N/A Is Not Zero: Why Vietnamese Sports Journalists Must Dare to Say 'Not Enough Data'

I have just received a sports analysis with nine sections. Every section contains only one abbreviation: N/A. No player name, no recent matches, no surface, no service data. In a sports newsroom, cheap transfer rumors are not the most dangerous thing. The most dangerous thing is a page full of words but without any fact to anchor itself.

In 2026, I sat in a corner of the press conference room at the National Athletics Championships at My Dinh Stadium, using an old laptop that crashed three times. In the middle of a forest of camera flashes, I spelled Nguyen Thi Oanh's name wrong three times in an 800-word article. That evening, the national team coach sent me a message correcting the mistake. My face turned red. But that embarrassment taught me faster than any journalism school. Nguyen Thi Oanh is not just a name; it is a life running forward. The old laptop taught me another lesson: slow does not mean late; it is only a different way of telling a story. I spent the night watching Oanh's performance tapes from 2026, carefully noting every statistic from the 1,500m races, just to write her name and her numbers correctly.

Since that year, I have kept my discipline: read an athlete's name three times before publishing; verify every statement with a source; base every tactical judgment on at least three match situations or three comparable data points. For a sports journalist, saying 'I do not have enough data' is not unprofessional; it is the most professional answer in an information vacuum. My principle is simple: if an article does not have enough data to stand on its own, I have no right to write the conclusion.

When I report on tennis for the Vietnamese market, I see far too many articles more rushed than a sharp cross-court backhand. A player loses in the first round and the next day is labeled 'finished'. A young player wins two ATP Challenger matches and immediately becomes 'the future of Vietnamese tennis'. That kind of storytelling burns emotion, but it does not respect the truth. Behind every tactical diagram is a human being trembling, hoping, and forgetting how to breathe. To understand that trembling, a writer must study serve percentages, break-point saves, and results on specific surfaces. Without those numbers, every emotion I write is only my emotion, not the athlete's.

All nine sections of the analysis I received were marked N/A. There is no subject, no tactic, no form data, no schedule, no risk list. If I tried to stretch it into a long article, it would be a work of imagination, not journalism. That is a disease in Vietnamese sports media: we are more afraid of leaving a blank page than of writing something wrong. Fans can forgive a short article, but they will never forget a factually false one. An arena is not great because of the number of seats; it is great because of the stories brave enough to stay.

A journalist who knows how to ask questions is worth more than one who always has an answer ready. And when an empty analysis arrives at the newsroom, the correct move is not to pour words into it. The correct move is to go back to the desk, find sources, verify numbers, and write only when there is something worth saying. Silence from a serious newsroom is better than the noise of fake news.