GENDER EQUITY AND THE SPORTS PAGES
Charles L. Kennedy
Political Science Department
Penn State York
March 2002
This study is a content analysis of several newspapers evaluating their coverage of women’s sports on the sports pages. The study was fueled by my ever-increasing concern that my local newspaper did not devote enough attention to female sports. I was a soccer dad when my daughters were in school and I became hooked on the sport. Eventually, I became an avid fan of the U.S. Women’s World Cup soccer team.
I strongly believe that newspapers have a major responsibility to focus on major
issues of society, government, and politics as they relate to sports. Gender equity is one of these issues. I also strongly believe that the role of a newspaper in contemporary society, as it has been through the ages, is not to merely communicate, but to educate and enlighten.
In their coverage of female sports, I believe the newspapers should not merely comply with the basic principles of Title IX, but should be in the forefront of promoting gender equity. After all the press is the only business that enjoys the constitutional protection of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Methodology
The newspapers included in the study are:
· Washington Post
· New York Times
· Baltimore Sun
· York Daily Record
· York Dispatch
· Lancaster Intelligencer-Journal
· Harrisburg Patriot-News
These magnificent seven were selected because I wanted to contrast the newspapers in the local service area and several newspapers from major metropolitan areas. All of these newspapers are also available in my college library. The month of April was selected for the month of the study. It was chosen simply because final exams end in early May and my summer camps don’t begin until mid June. Thus, I expected to have adequate time for the study. I simply cannot think of any rationale that makes one month preferable to another for a study of this nature. I decided to focus only on the weekday papers, excluding Saturdays and Sundays, and to examine 20 daily papers for each newspaper. I examined the weekdays of April 2-6, 9-13, 16-20 and 23-27. If a paper was missing from the library, I included Monday, April 30. If there were still missing papers, I based the average for that paper on as many as I had, 19 or 18 instead of 20. With the huge volume of papers that I examined, I am sure the results were not skewered by this decision.
I should note this is a very time-consuming, deliberate, and tedious process. I did not attempt to evaluate the quality of the articles, simply to quantify the total coverage. This involved measuring the articles. I did not use column inches, since the width of the columns not only varied from paper to paper, but even from page to page on several papers. Thus, the first standard that I used was total square inches. I then determined the percentage of the total square inches of women’s sports compared to the total square inches of all pages in the sports section. It should be noted and emphasized that advertisements and other news features on the sports pages were not excluded from the total square inches per page. This was done simply for time-efficiency reasons. Otherwise, I would still be measuring.
The second classification variable was the percentage of articles on gender equity on the front page as compared to the entire sports pages. The third criteria was the percentage of actual articles, excluding statistics. The seven newspapers were then ranked from 1-7 (one being the highest) regarding the extent of their coverage on each category.
Although many people say that a picture is worth a 1,000 words, pictures, words, and numbers were treated equally for the initial phase of this study. There was also no consideration given to the location of the article. Front page, top, left side were treated equally with 3rd page, bottom, right side, for instance. I simply wanted to avoid as many subjective judgments as possible, and focus instead on total content. After this initial classification of content, I then used the same basic methodology dealing only with pictures. Thus, three additional variables were included: total percentage of pictures, front page pictures, and colored pictures.
(Note: Several of the articles I reference appeared after the focal point of the study, 20 days in April. There has been an on-going review of these papers and many of these later examples are ideal for illustrating a point.)
The Study
The Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post have the most sports pages, averaging 10.6 and 10.4 pages, respectively, for the period of the study. The range of pages for the Sun and the Post was 8-14 for both. The Harrisburg Patriot-News ranked 3rd with a 9.2 average and a range of 8-11 pages. The York Dispatch had the least number of pages devoted to sports—an average of 5.8 and a range of 4-8 pages. In retrospect I should have examined the number of sports pages compared to the total number of pages for the entire paper. This would have given insight into the emphasis the newspaper places on the role of sports in society today. This was an oversight and omission on my part. The rank of the newspapers regarding total sports pages:
Rank Paper Avg. Pages Range of Pages
1 Baltimore Sun 10.6 8-14
2 Washington Post 10.4 8-14
3 Harrisburg Patriot-News 9.2 8-11
4 Lancaster Intelligencer-Journal 7.0 5-10
5 New York Times 6.3 4-10
6 York Daily Record 6.1 5-7
7 York Dispatch 5.8 4-8
The York Daily Record and the Lancaster Intelligencer-Journal are the MVPs (Most Valuable Papers) for the amount of content of female sports on the sports pages. This is due to their emphasis on local high school sports. Both papers devote fairly equal coverage to male and female athletic teams. However, it should be noted that both are deplorably low—devoting only 6.2% and 6.1%, respectively, of their coverage to female sports. The Harrisburg Patriot-News is in the basement with only 3.1% of the sports pages devoted to women’s sports. The 3rd place finish of the York Dispatch was also due to their equal coverage of male-female sports teams at the local level. The complete ranking of content of female sports:
Rank Paper % Female Sports
1 Daily Record 6.2
2 Intelligencer-Journal 6.1
3 Dispatch 5.1
4 Times 4.7
5 Post 4.6
6 Sun 4.2
7 Patriot-News 3.1
An excellent example of this paucity of coverage is illustrated by examining two papers. On August 26 the day after the Women’s Soccer championship game between the Bay
Area and Atlanta, the Post ran an article “Cyber Rays Deliver Extra Kick for Inaugural Title” plus a picture on page D6. Conversely, the Patriot-News listed only the final score. It should also be emphasized that the Post also carried an article “United Shows Lot of Heart” on the local men’s professional soccer team plus a picture. The Post devoted 101 square inches to the men’s game and only 52 square inches to the women’s championship game.
Another issue that should be examined is the extent to which coverage of women’s sports involves actual articles, as opposed to statistics. Although they were measured equally in the first category, it is worthwhile to examine the percentage of the content devoted to women’s sports comparing articles and statistics. The Times and Post are runaway frontrunners with 96.5% and 92.7%, respectively, devoted to articles on women’s sports as compared to statistics. The Intelligencer-Journal, although 2nd in coverage of women’s sports, finishes last with only 61%.
The percentage of content of female sports based on articles yields the following ranking:
Rank Paper %
1 Times 96.5
2 Post 92.7
3 Dispatch 74.3
4 Daily Record 71.6
5 Patriot-News 71.2
6 Sun 66.1
7 Intelligencer-Journal 61.0
Arguably, an article on a game indicates greater emphasis, whereas the use of statistics tends to reduce the coverage to box scores, line scores and listings of rankings. If we evaluated the papers only on articles about female sports, the ranks are somewhat different. The Times and the Post climb to 1st and 3rd, respectively. The Daily Record and the Intelligencer-Journal, the leaders in total coverage, drop to 2nd and 4th, respectively. The revised rankings based on percentage of actual articles:
Rank Paper % Female Sports
(Articles Only)
1 Times 4.5
2 Daily Record 4.4
3 Post 4.3
4 Dispatch 3.8
5 Intelligencer-Journal 3.7
6 Sun 2.8
7 Patriot-News 2.2
The Patriot-News, which finished last in both categories, actually devoted more space to gambling (3.6%) than to female sports (3.1%) . When you exclude statistics from the content of the Patriot-News, only 2.2% of their content was devoted to female sports. Their FANLINE coverage of 2.8% was actually greater. In the FANLINE, which appears daily, readers phone in to voice their views on anything and everything.
Although these numbers are extremely low, I should remind the reader that the percentages are based on total square inches per article on female sports divided by total square inches per page. The advertisements, other articles such as obituaries, legal notices, weather reports, etc. were not excluded. If they were, the totals for female sports, compared to all sports, would definitely be higher. As an analytical tool, I had to draw lines at some point, otherwise I would still be measuring. The newspapers made decisions, however, for a variety of reasons to include these other items on the sports pages, thus they were included in the total pages devoted to sports, that arguably could be devoted to women’s sports.
The front pages of the sports section are the lead stories of the day. These are the stories that the newspaper considers most important. These front pages deal exclusively with sports. This page is not impacted by these extraneous items. The Daily Record once again is the pacesetter. The Patriot News is second with 7.3% and the Post trails the pack with only 0.4% devoted to women’s sports. The complete ranking by front-page coverage:
Rank Paper % of Front Sports Page
1 Daily Record 10.6
2 Patriot News 7.3
3 Times 7.2
4 Intelligencer-Journal 7.0
5 Dispatch 6.0
6 Sun 3.6
7 Post 0.4
These low scores on the front pages and the lower scores devoted to actual articles underscore the low emphasis placed on female sports. It appears that women’s sports still have a long way to go—especially in terms of coverage on the sports pages.
This trend continues when the content analysis is applied to pictures. If we go on the assumption that “a picture is worth a thousand words”, then it is worthwhile to also evaluate the newspapers according to the amount of pictures devoted to women in sports. Reporters frequently will emphasize to you the importance, not only of pictures, but also of pictures on the front page, and also colored pictures. Thus, all three factors were examined – total, front page, and color. The Patriot News has the most pictures of all athletes on a daily basis, 15.7, followed by the Post, 14.4. The rank of the newspapers for total pictures:
Average Pictures
Rank Paper per day
1 Patriot-News 15.7
2 Post 14.4
3 Sun 14.1
4 Intelligencer-Journal 11.3
5 Daily Record 11.2
6 Times 10.2
7 Dispatch 8.3
For total front page pictures, the win and place positions go to the Intelligencer-Journal and the Patriot-News with daily averages of 6.6 and 6.1 respectively. The rank of the newspapers for average daily front page pictures:
Average Daily Front
Rank Paper Page Pictures
1 Intelligencer-Journal 6.6
2 Patriot-News 6.1
3 Daily Record 5.5
4 Dispatch 5.3
5 Times 4.5
6 Post 4.2
7 Sun 3.8
The runaway leaders for total color pictures are the Patriot News and the Intelligencer-Journal, averaging 7.3 and 6.9 per day. Interestingly, the Times trails the pack averaging only one color picture per day. The rank of the papers for average color pictures per day:
Average Color Pictures
Rank Paper per day
1 Patriot-News 7.3
2 Intelligencer-Journal 6.9
3 Post 5.2
4 Sun 4.0
5 Daily Record 3.6
6 Dispatch 2.1
7 Times 1.0
The important issue, however, for the purpose of this study is the percentage of total pictures devoted to women’s sports.
The win, place, and show awards for total pictures of women on the sports pages go to the Post, Dispatch, and Daily Record with respective daily percentages of all pictures of 12.7, 11.3, and 10.7. Interestingly, the Patriot-News has only 7% of total pictures devoted to women to finish in the cellar. The rank of the papers:
Percent Women
Rank Paper of Total Pictures
1 Post 12.7
2 Dispatch 11.3
3 Daily Record 10.7
4 Intelligencer-Journal 9.7
5 Sun 8.9
6 Times 7.4
7 Patriot-News 7.0
The Daily Record is the frontrunner, greatly outdistancing the field, in the category of percentage of pictures of women on the front page with 14.5%. The Times is second with 10.1% and interestingly, the Post drops to a distant last with only 2.5%. The rank of the papers:
Percent Pictures of Women
Rank Paper on Front Pages
1 Daily Record 14.5
2 Times 10.1
3 Dispatch 8.8
4 Intelligencer-Journal 8.3
5 Sun 7.9
6 Patriot-News 6.6
7 Post 2.5
In the category of colored pictures of women, the Dispatch and Daily Record lap most of the field with percentages of 17.1 and 16.9 percent. The Dispatch numbers are inflated, however, due to the fact that they do not have many colored pictures, only 35. Of the six pictures of women, four were of their female columnist. The same exception applies to their percentages on the front page and total pictures. For purposes of the study, however, all pictures were included. For instance, the Post ran a picture of the injured wife of a professional boxer. She had been hurt in a car accident. The picture was on the front page and was a colored picture. It was one of only four colored pictures of women that the Post ran. Arguably, it could have been excluded.