Sports writers at the Denver Post no longer predict the outcomes of games involving teams they cover.  Westworld.com reports that the Post’s editor, Greg Moore, says it’s a matter of ethics.

Moore told the Westworld news blog:

“Sports writers are no different than other news-beat reporters. We would not have political reporters picking sides in a political contest.

“We did not get a single complaint from outside, but I did look at the predictions before the San Diego game. Obviously, I had seen these for years. And it occurred to me that it must be making it hard for news reporters, especially when they pick against the team they cover. In an equal vein, these beat reporters don’t want to seem like homers, always picking the Broncos. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed an unreasonable position to put these reporters in.”

“We consulted with the writers and, after getting their feedback, we stopped. It is not a big deal, and it is something I should have thought of a long time ago.”

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch doesn’t have a policy on predicting the outcomes of games. Currently, the only predicting is done by sports copy editor Dan Caesar, who also writes the Media Views column that appears Fridays. On Sundays, Caesar writes capsule summaries of NFL games and he includes predictions of final scores. Caesar doesn’t cover the Rams.

For years, the Post-Dispatch — like many other papers — ran the predictions of a panel of beat writers. Sports Editor Reid Laymance says that was discontinued because there’s better use for the space — and because readers probably weren’t that interested.