On the same team? a qualitative study of female sportswriters' attitudes on covering women's athletics

摘要

Women's athletics regularly receives less media coverage than men's athletics,and female athletes are often portrayed in ways that de-emphasize their athletic abilities.Previous researchers have suggested that increasing the number of women who work insports media might improve coverage for female athletes. Ten women sportswriters whowork at daily newspapers were interviewed to explore how they perceived coveringwomen's sports.Most of the sportswriters said that they did not feel any preference towardcovering women's athletics. They said they were more interested in finding good storiesto write than pursuing stories based on gender. The sportswriters also suggested thatmen's sports received more coverage because sports fans were more interested in men'ssports. Most of the women said that their bosses do not expect women to cover women? ssports because of their gender, but that newspapers' use of the beat system encouragessportswriters of both sexes to cover the top men's professional sports and collegefootball. The widespread use of beats to cover sports and the acknowledgement of whatsports constitute the top beats suggests that the profession and the larger field of sportsjournalism can influence what sports sportswriters want to cover. Organizational culture,new institutionalism, and Bourdieu's field theory can help explain how the sportswritingprofession and sports media practices influence sportswriters' decisions on what sportsare desirable to cover.