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From: Prof. Pearson
Date: 1/27/01
Time: 2:31:03 PM
Remote Name: 159.91.92.113
Okay, here are some links that I found in a quick altavista search. One of the most interesting, a title from the January 2000 issue of Columbia Journalism Review, wasn't hyperlinked. I'll see if I can get it from the library. The title was "Women Sportswriters: They're Still Dumb Broads to Some." In any event, what I pick up so far is part of the reason I know that both the frustrations and the successes that Josee refers to are not isolated experiences. By the way, some of my friends in the business are going to try to come in for class, or at least hit the message board.
Claire Smith: An AWSM pioneer
By NICHOLE GANTSHAR
Game 2 of the World Series had just ended. The San Diego Padres had just defeated the Detroit Tigers 5-3 to tie the series 1-1. It was 1984, and the scene was as surreal as the George Orwell novel.
Most writers were scrambling to get quotes for their stories, but Claire Smith, the New York Yankees beat writer for the Hartford Courant, stood outside the clubhouse trying not to cry. Security personnel had just pushed Smith outside, telling her she was not allowed inside, and players cursed at her as she walked past them.... http://users2.fdn.com/~awsm/newsletter.html
"I am sure there were people saying, 'Ugh, she shouldn’t be there.' But I never heard that. And I realized pretty young, in my early twenties, that I couldn’t control that," she said. Olympics sports: one great beat <snip> Brennan said she endured occasional sexist jokes or negative comments in men’s locker rooms, but was also encouraged by fellow journalists.
"If I didn’t have male sports editors, the establishment of the newspaper supporting me, I would never have been able to move on," Brennan said.
http://www.freedomforum.org/newseumnews/1999/3/12olympics.asp
Gridiron Wench: Intrepid Girl Reporter
By Alyssa Lulie
Sometimes when I'm at a game, I feel like Alyssa Lulie: Intrepid Girl Reporter. And then there's the rest of the time, when I feel like -- or am treated like -- somebody's lost little sister.
Granted, I sort of understand. For example, I was at the Saint Mary's game Saturday, and as I looked around the press box of about 25 people, it occurred to me that there were only two other females present: the stat girl and the director/technician-type person for SportsChannel. I was the only female sportswriter. I could see how that could be a little weird. http://www.californiaaggie.com/archive/97/10/27/ARwench.html
<snip> ...The strangest thing about my profession and women's sports? Women sports journalists across the country often have less respect for, and interest in, women's sports than their male counterparts.... http://uss001.infi.net/denver/post/scolumns/frei0718.htm The status of women sports journalists is still sufficiently tenuous that some people worry that individuals' transgressions will reflect on the group, to wit:
Ethics affect all
By LISA GRAYSON Staff Writer
Charles Bricker, the veteran reporter from the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, was on assignment in San Diego in March of 1998 when he encountered a rumor from the tennis community.
What Bricker uncovered sent shock waves through Wimbledon: One of the sport's up-and-coming phenoms, Alexandra Stevenson, was the biological daughter of Julius Winfield Erving II.
Ripples went through the journalism industry as well.
While the married Dr. J was criticized for being another athlete who engaged in a brief sexual relationship, Bricker was condemned for unveiling the innocence of an 18-year-old. http://www.medina-gazette.com/jul/072199/sports1.htm
More on Stevenson-Erving
BY STEVE KETTMANN (07/07/99) Playing from behind The trials and tribulations of being a female sportswriter were highlighted by last week's Samantha Stevenson-Julius Erving story.
- - - - - - - - - - - - By Steve Kettmann
July 7, 1999 | Ever since women started covering sports in appreciable numbers in the late 1970s, they have fought an unending battle to be taken seriously. First, there were the complaints that they didn't know enough about their beat to do their job. Then there was the squawking about allowing women into rooms filled with naked men. And finally, there were the whispers that women sportswriters were more interested in going out with athletes than writing about them. http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1999/07/07/women_sportswriters/index.html In response to: Plaing from behind Hey --- such doom and gloom! Things really aren't that bad. Yes, I'm appalled by the Samantha Stevenson-Julius Erving situation. Any time a relationship between an athlete and a sports journalist becomes something other than professional, it's a problem. Stevenson broke the rules and her reputation is shot. But don't use her sorry story to paint the situation for the entire industry. Women sports journalists are thriving. The Associated Women in Sports Media group, started a dozen years ago by a handful of women, now has hundreds and hundreds of members. Almost every major daily newspaper in the country has at least one female writer or columnist and many more working on the copy desk or as editors..... http://www.salon.com/letters/1999/07/14/ecstasy/print.html
If anyone is interested in reading an anthology of works by women's sportswriters, there's "A Kind of Grace," edited by Ron Rappaport (Rdr Books, 1994). One reviewer said: Editorial Reviews The publisher, rdrbooks@lanminds.com , September 15, 1997 Funny, heartbreaking and beautifully written ... Ron Rapaport, popular comentator on National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition" and Deputy Sports Editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, brings together sixty six of America's top women sportswriters in this remarkable anthology. Funny, heartbreaking and beautifully written, these pieces will delight women and men of all ages. Funny how that's written, it seems to me. As if an argument has to be made for gender equity, and it's necessary to assure men that they'll like it too.
"Good stuff ... Eloquent... a powerful argument for gender equity..." - Jim Murray, Los Angeles Times
And while we're at it, we might as well talk about the presentation of women athletes. This is from the women's sports foundation:
SPEAKING OF…
By Donna A. Lopiano
Executive Director
Women's Sports Foundation
Submitted to Sports Business Journal
Quite the month in women's sports; everywhere I go, I'm asked about naked women. Jenny Thompson with fists over bare breasts in Sports Illustrated while Women's Sports and Fitness magazine ran a photo of four naked female swimmers barely covered by a less than artfully draped American flag towel. The flesh issue generated a ton of comment and columns. I wish folks were as consumed about unequal treatment of girls and women in sport as they are with arguing that it's okay for female athletes to display their muscles by appearing unclothed. Why the double standard for female athletes? It's okay for the media to memorialize the athletic performances of male athletes while portraying female athletes as sex objects? I'm waiting for any sport magazine to run a photo of Tiger Woods stark naked with both hands covering his genitalia? Would they even ask him to do it? http://womenssportsfoundation.org/templates/action/take/results_views.html?record=589