I use reporting-clauses. Some examples, he said, remarked, stated, declaimed, proclaimed, declared, opined, agreed, affirmed, confirmed, claimed, stressed, emphasized etc.
Do you think reporting-clauses are necessary. Do they work better in some genres?
I do and I don't.
In an extended conversation you don't need to once you've established the speakers. But having said that, conversations don't just go on, line after line, however long they are. There are pauses. People's expressions or body language changeand you may need to show that. So you might need to re-establish the speaker, to make sure the reader's not confused,
That said, I gather 'said' is most commonly used as research shows it's less intrusive to readers than a more descriptive clause: the latter should be used sparingly. Which I probably do, though not deliberately. I don't think genre matters much in this instance.