Laura C. Bernheim

Laura C. Bernheim

OhioUniversity

HonorsTutorialCollege

Journalism

Thesis Prospectus

Advisor: Daniel Riffe

Director of Studies: Bernhard Debatin

Title: ‘Token broad to key player: Women sportswriters begin to level the playing field’

Introduction:

Female sports journalists do not just have to know the sports they cover – they have to account for sources and colleagues who disapprove of their presence simply because they are women. Outside pressures, unintended perceptions and the constant scrutiny of being a female sportswriter in a heavily male-dominated field can be overwhelming.

Quite a few cases show women in sports journalism becoming a larger story than the one originally assigned. Melissa Ludtke, one of the first prominent women sportswriters, gained national attention when she filed a lawsuit against the New York Yankees. As one of two reporters at Sports Illustrated on the baseball beat, Ludtke was banned from entering the Yankees locker room during the 1977 World Series between the Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers. The 1978 ruling ordered equal access for female reporters over the complaints from coaches, players and some male sportswriters.

Lisa Olson’s 1990 harassment by New England Patriots players, however, is often considered the defining incident in women’s efforts to be treated as equals in the locker room. As a 26-year-old working for the Boston Herald, Olson described being confronted by naked players who made lewd comments and gestures. Olson received hundreds of pieces of hate mail, some even including death threats. Patriots owner Victor Kiam publicly called Olson a “classic bitch.” Olson eventually fled to Australia, settled a civil harassment suit against the Patriots, and eventually returned to the United States, writing for the New York Daily News.

Today, however, there appears to be a steady erosion of the prejudices and stereotypes plaguing women sportswriters. There are more women sportswriters and editors across the country than ever before. Sports editors eagerly seek to improve their staff’s diversity statistics, which means women are not only more likely to get a job but also may be promoted at a faster rate. While this can be considered a success, it also makes women more susceptible to the resentment of the male colleagues who did not get the promotion. I anticipate understanding exactly what pressures women sportswriters face in their profession, whether positive or negative.

Research questions and approach:

-How are women sports writers perceived in the newsroom? In the locker room and press box?

-How do women in sports media believe their careers are impacted by their

gender? How has that changed since the 1970s and ‘80s?

-How does being female affect a sportswriter’s chances of being hired?

Promoted?

There are more women sportswriters and editors across the country than ever before. After conducting interviews with as many reporters and editors – male and female – as possible, I plan on analyzing the responses and anecdotes from the subjects to draw my own gender-related conclusions that are prevalent in the sports journalism industry. Although my questions at this point are fairly open and vague, I will thoroughly refine them as I become more and more educated on the industry and prepare a self-administered questionnaire. It will be distributed at the Association for Women in Sports Media’s annual conference, held this year in February.

In addition to the numerous lectures, presentations and sources available and accessible for interviews, the questionnaire will include post-marked, self-addressed envelopes to insure their return. This will give my thesis some more numerical facts instead of solely relying on anecdotal data. Not only will I gather invaluable information, I will learn about conducting designing and conduction a questionnaire study and how to properly analyze the results.

I will do this all after obtaining approval from OhioUniversity’s Institutional Review Board, which includes an online training module.

Annotated bibliography

1. Archdeacon, Tom. “Patriots losing grip on tact.” Dayton Daily News. 17 Sept. 1990.

Tom Archdeacon, the sports columnist for the Dayton Daily News, is friends with Lisa Olson, the Boston Herald reporter who was assaulted in the New England Patriots locker room the week before this article ran. The Patriots’ next game was in Cincinnati, and Archdeacon went to write a column. After the game, he was standing at the entrance of the Patriots’ locker room — part seeing if there was a better column idea and part looking out for Olson. Patriots owner Victor Kiam, who didn’t know Archdeacon was a reporter, stood next to him and said, “She’s the classic bitch.” The statement was repeated in papers nationwide.

1. Brennan, Christine. Best Seat in the House: A Father, a Daughter, a Journey Through Sports.New York: Scribner, 2006.

Christine Brennan is a sports columnist for USAToday and although a good portion of this book is devoted to her childhood and relationship with her father, it goes into incredible detail about her career. She started at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, covered the Miami Dolphins for the Miami Herald, the Redskins for the Washington Post and appeared on a variety of sports broadcasts along the way. She was the first female sportswriter in Miami and the first woman to cover the Redskins. Although she’s been successful at nearly every level, she documents moments of insecurity or unprofessional behavior and harassment. She was also one of the founding members of the Association for Women in Sports Media and the first president of the association.

1. Cohen, Greta. “The Media Industry: Representations, Images and Issues.” Women in Sport: Issues and Controversies. Greta L. Cohen, ed. 2nd ed. Reston, VA: National Association of Girls and Women in Sport, 2001.

This book focuses on larger gender issues in sociology, government and policy, physiology and psychology as they relate to women’s sports, but this article examines the media coverage those sports receive. It’s not the most relevant to my thesis as it stands now, but it references many of the works found elsewhere in my bibliography.

1. Disch, Lisa and Mary Jo Kane. “When a Looker Is Really a Bitch: Lisa Olson, Sport, and the Heterosexual Matrix.” Reading Sport. Susan Birrell, Mary G. McDonald, eds. Boston: Northeastern, 2000.

This article details the locker room incident between Boston Herald reporter Lisa Olson and New England Patriots’ players and applies it to the larger topic of women and sports writing. This should be a very valuable source because it is cited in numerous other sources I’ve consulted. It is the most comprehensive evaluation, explanation and analysis of this event that I have found so far.

1. Fornoff, Susan. Lady in the Locker Room: Uncovering the Oakland Athletics.Los Angeles: High Top, 1993.

Susan Fornoff is another woman baseball beat writer. She covered the Athletics in the 1980s, so she will serve as another historical perspective. Fornoff withstood some abuse from the players. Dave Kingman, a player, gift-wrapped a dead rat and told her, “Baseball is a fraternity, a fraternity of men. And you will never understand that or be a part of that because you are a woman.” However, not all the players gave Fornoff such a hard time, according to her book. Many players talked to her differently because she was a woman — but in a way, the special connection gave her a unique understanding of the team and baseball in general. This book explains how she became largely accepted as “one of the guys without ever becoming one.”

1. Gordon, Alison. Foul Ball! Five Years in the American League. New York: Dodd Mead, 1985.

Most of this book is fairly useless. Alison Gordon covered the Toronto Blue Jays for a couple years, but the book is more about baseball players in general and very little about her experiences writing and traveling. The book does, however contain two relevant chapters: “Ink-Stained Wretches,” about the sports media in general, and “Token Broad,” where she describes a few of her experiences and thoughts on women in the locker room.

1. Hardin, Marie and Stacie Shain. “Strength in Numbers? The Experiences and Attitudes of Women in Sports Media Careers.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. Vol. 82, No. 4, Winter 2005.

The authors surveyed about 145 female Association for Women in Sports Media members and asked about experiences and satisfaction on the job and in the locker room. Most respondents returned favorable rankings of their workplace and co-workers, though more than half of the respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement “I have never felt discrimination” in job duties or in the workplace. In general, respondents see their gender as presenting obstacles but it does not hinder them in carrying out duties. This article will help me immensely in preparing and administering my questionnaire.

1. Kettmann, Steve. “Playing from behind.” Salon.com. 7 July 1999.

Most controversies concerning women sportswriters involve the male athletes harassing the reporter. Kettman wrote an article on Samantha Stevenson, a beat writer for the Philadelphia 76ers, who conceived a child with Julius Erving, the star player of the team. Other prominent women sports journalists contribute to the larger analysis of what this means in the larger context of women in sports media. It is really interesting to read about something besides the perceived norm of women withstanding the abuse. I’d be curious to see if any similar incidents have occurred.

1. Ludtke v. Kuhn. No. 77 Civ. 6301.

This landmark case cleared the way for women sportswriters. Melissa Ludtke, a baseball beat writer for Sports Illustrated, was denied access to the New York Yankees clubhouse after a 1977 World Series game. The commissioner at the time, Bowie Kuhn, created a policy that required accredited female sports reporters be excluded from the locker rooms. Male reporters were still granted access. The Los Angeles Dodgers, the Yankees’ opponent, granted Ludtke access. Kuhn excluded women reporters to: “protext the privacy of those players who are undressed or who are in various stages of undressing and getting ready to shower; protect the image of baseball as a family sport; preserve of traditional notions of decency and propriety.”

1. Penner, Mike. “Old Mike, New Christine.” Los Angeles Times. April 26, 2007.

Mike Penner was a 23-year member of the Los Angeles Times sports department. He held positions and beats such as tennis, the Angels, Olympics, columnist, media critic and NFL columnist. Then, with this column, Mike announces he is going on vacation for a few weeks and coming back – as Christine. As he wrote: “I am a transsexual sportswriter. It has taken more than 40 years, a million tears and hundreds of hours of soul-wrenching therapy for me to work up the courage to type those words.”

1. Nelson, Mariah Burton. Are We Winning Yet? How Women are Changing Sports and Sports are Changing Women. New York: Random House, 1991.

Mariah Burton Nelson, an editor for Women’s Sport and Fitness, examined how women have woven themselves so thoroughly into both sports and media. Although this book focuses on gender-related ability gaps of athletes, lesbianism and takes a more radical feminist tone, it is another perspective worth considering in my thesis.

1. Nelson, Mariah Burton. The Stronger Women Get, The More Men Love Football: Sexism and the American Culture of Sports.New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994.

Nelson studies the connection between predominantly physical endeavors of sports and gender and how men respond to women’s “expressions of freedom” by participating and competing in sports.

1. Reinardy, Scott. “Satisfaction vs. Sacrifice: Sports Editors Assess the Influences of Life Issues on Job Satisfaction.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. Vol. 84, No. 1, Spring 2007.

This study hardly focuses on the gender topic I am examining but does a good job thoroughly investigating the contributors to job satisfaction among newspaper sports editors. Work-family conflict is a negative influence, which supports findings in Claire Smith’s article found below. The study found sports editors are willing to sacrifice time with their families and work excessively but remain in the job because they enjoy the work. Because of women’s traditional role as the caregiver in families, I would be interested to see how these results transfer to solely women sportswriters.

1. Ricchiardi, Sherry. “Offensive Interference.” American Journalism Review. December/January 2005.

This article serves as a good starting point of research. Primarily, it summarizes or outline defining experiences of about 15 women sportswriters. By arranging them chronologically, the article historically examines the plight of women sportswriters throughout the years. Though it doesn’t into nearly as much detail as I hope to in my thesis, it provides at least a skeletal structure of how my final thesis could look.

1. Ricchiardi, Sherry. “The Pioneers.” American Journalism Review. December/January 2005.

Like the previous article by Ricchiardi, this article supplies cursory information — but valuable superficial information. Ricchiardi spoke with Melissa Ludtke and wrote about how she became interested in sportswriting and worked her way up to the Sports Illustrated position. It is interesting to read something about Ludtke other than specifically relating to the legal case. Ricchiardi also spoke with Christine Brennan and Lesley Visser, the first female journalist to join Monday Night Football and report from the sidelines at the Super Bowl.

1. Smith, Claire. “Family issues come to fore for sportswriters.” The American Editor. American Society of Newspaper Editors. January-February 2000.

Claire Smith was a sports columnist and a sports editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer. In addition to her sex, Smith also contends with race – she is black. In her article, she argued that women are no longer focused on gaining locker room access and acceptance but rather are still having troubles balancing work and having a family. Sporting events usually occur on nights and weekends, require a lot of travel.

1. Sowell, Mike. “A Woman in a Man’s World: ‘Annie Laurie,’ One of America’s First Sportswriters.” Sport, rhetoric, and gender: Historical perspectives and Media Representations. Linda K. Fuller, ed. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006.

I expect this article to contribute to my historical portion of my thesis. Although I have fairly comprehensive research already on women sportswriters from the 1970s and ‘80s, I am lacking information on the earliest writers of the profession. Winifred Black, who wrote under the byline “Annie Laurie,” infiltrated an all-men’s club in 1892 to become the first woman to cover a prize fight for an American newspaper.

1. Sport and Postmodern Times. Genevieve Rail, ed. Albany, NY: StateUniversity of New York, 1998.

This book contains two articles I would like to examine further: “Lesbians and Locker Rooms: The Subjective Experiences of Lesbians in Sport” by Caroline Fusco, and “In Search of a Sports Bar: Masculinity, Alcohol, Sports, and the Mediation of Public Space” by Lawrence A. Wenner. Although “Lesbians and Locker Rooms” studies and compiles experiences of lesbian athletes, it shows another minority group feeling uncomfortable, pressured, suppressed and even threatened. “In Search of a Sports Bar,” Wenner immediately establishes sports bars as “men’s places.” Everything from the sports bar to the stadium, locker room to playing field is part of the “male identity.” While women certainly do not compose the majority in any of these areas, their complete absence in this article astounds me.

1. Women, Media and Sport. Pamela J. Creedon, ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 1994.

This book compiles several extremely useful articles. Relevant articles by Creedon include “Women, Media and Sport: Creating and Reflecting Gender Values,” “Women in Toyland: A Look at Women in American Newspaper Sports Journalism” and “Conversations with Women Sports Journalists.” In addition, there are about two or three more articles that will be helpful — one specifically addresses the construction of gender stereotypes in baseball.

1. Women, Sport, and Culture. Susan Birrell, Cheryl Cole, eds. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1994.

One of the five parts of this book examines media, sport and gender – the rest look at the larger social and political issues present in women’s sports. Chapter 18 in particular should be helpful to my research; it examines work routines in newspaper sports departments and how it relates to the coverage of women’s sports. The authors attribute the lack of coverage in part to a lack of female presence in a fair number of newsrooms.

Proposed Timeline

• Nov. 8-20: Complete IRB online training, apply for IRB approval, create and edit questionnaire
• Nov. 26-Dec. 14: Conduct interviews with Lisa Olson, Melissa Ludtke,