Why no Title IX in coverage?
All stories are not created equal. In Sports coverage, games, teams and sports are not created equal.
That's what I would have told this letterwriter (second on the page) had he asked. He was upset that during one eight-day period, we published stories about men's college basketball games on the front page of the Sports section, but not women's games.
It would be easy to dismiss this inconsistency as trivial. But sexism, in any form, is not trivial. It diminishes our understanding and appreciation for the hard work women do in our society, at every level, and perpetuates ideas of inequality that cannot be a part of the N&R mission. Your trained journalists know better.
We weigh a number of factors as we decide where to play stories. We know that there is greater interest by our readers in college basketball and football than, say, baseball or soccer. We know there is greater interest by our readers in male sports. We know there is greater interest in teams that are closer to Greensboro. We know there is greater interest in teams that are winning. We know that some days there is intense competition for space on the front page; on others a scissors, rock, paper contest is the best we have.
There are exceptions. For instance, this season we are giving more ink to the Grimsley girls basketball team than the boys because the girls are undefeated. Same with Wake Forest's men's national soccer championship despite some complaints. As the UNC women marched through the NCAA tournament to the championship game last year, we increased our coverage.
I live in a house with three female athletes. I understand the issue of equality in the gyms and the playing field. But requiring equality in news coverage based on gender? Sorry.
Comments (2)
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And this is why you lose, and we win.
You have the web, use it. It's virtually free and has unlimited pages. The best or most read stories get pushed to the print version.
Posted on January 31, 2008 9:03 AM
I think that is only partially true, Don. True about using the web. But our experience is that the web user and the newspaper reader is different, looking for different things and different experiences. The best stories in the newspaper aren't necessarily the best on the web and vice versa.
Posted on January 31, 2008 9:08 AM