Women in sports journalism can feel like ‘crashing the frat party’

Rebeca Piccardo/BBC Managing Editor

Every time Lindsay Casinelli walks into a room, she has to prove herself just because she is a woman.

“The first thing that people see are my boobs, and I live with that,” said Casinelli, an Emmy-winning reporter and Univision sportscaster.

On the March 18 sports journalism panel for “Communication’s Week 2014,” Casinelli and Michelle Kaufman, a Miami Herald sportswriter and a University of Miami adjunct professor, spoke up about the bias towards women in the field.

“Women  in sports journalism must constantly prove themselves to their audience, colleagues and the players interviewed,” said Casinelli.

Kaufman said that some of the main issues she experienced while covering sports throughout her 28 year career were access and credibility.

As one of the first women to cover the NFL,  she was denied access to locker room interviews for being a woman.

“I had to stand outside,” said Kaufman. “Meanwhile my colleagues, whom I had to compete against, are all in there, getting the interviews.”

“When women started showing up to cover sports, the men in the business resented giving up the access they once had, just to give women an equal opportunity for interviews,” said Kaufman.

So women were given access, but had to deal with “crashing the frat party,” said Kaufman.

Although there were times of frustration, Kaufman stuck with what she loved–sports–with the help of women before her and the Association for Women in Sports media, an organization that sprung up out of the necessity to unify the women who felt isolated in the individual newspapers, she said.

“As far as logistics go, it’s gotten better,” said Kaufman. “Now, the athletes are more used to seeing women in the business.”

However, there is still a lot of bias in sports journalism because of the assumption that only men have the “sports gene,” she said.

“There’s a credibility issue,” said Kaufman. There is still a general skepticism towards seeing a female byline in the sports section, which can take a toll on the writer’s authority on the subject matter, she said.

When a man enters sports journalism, their knowledge is never questioned, and they just need to prove that they can write and report, said Kaufman. Women entering the field need to prove not only their ability as a reporter, but as a sports connoisseur as well.

Kaufman, who just got back from Sochi and has covered various other Olympics and World Cups, still deals with bias today.

“I still get very nasty gender-oriented mail that men in our business don’t have to deal with,” Kaufman said.

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Photo by Rebeca Piccardo.
Lindsay Casinelli, a Univision sportscaster, started out in journalism at California State University as SJMC Dean Raul Reis’ student.

Despite the setbacks for women in sports journalism, Casinelli said that there are certain things women have to offer in sports that some men can’t—like showing the person, not just the athlete.

“We do great interviews because we bring the human part of the athletes out,” said Casinelli, who has interviewed famous athletes like Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees, Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox, David “Big Papi” Ortiz.

Kaufman, who teaches sports writing at UM, has noticed that despite the large number of women studying sports journalism in college, most of them don’t end up getting into the field.

“There’s still not enough of us,” said Kaufman. “When it comes to entering the field, women don’t apply to the sports journalism jobs.”

Based on a 2013 report from the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport conducted by the University of Central Florida,  88.3 percent of sports reporters were men, 90.2 percent of columnists were men,  90.4 percent of sports editors were men and 82.8 percent of assistant sports editors were men.

Kaufman suspects that some young women might be turned off by the lifestyle, working nights and weekends, while others might shy away from competing against men, because of the fear that they might have the upper hand.

“Women are insecure about their knowledge of sports, while guys are cocky about it,” said Kaufman, who said that until the number of women in sports journalism increases, seeing women in the field will still be a novelty.

Paige Lewis, a junior broadcast journalism major who covers the Florida Panthers for PantherParkway.com, asked Kaufman and Casinelli for advice when asking questions in a room full of loud, experienced male reporters.

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone,” said Kaufman, advising Lewis to yell over them. Women, as well as all minorities, have to be better than average to succeed, she said.

Casinelli, who had originally set out to become a news reporter,  encouraged students to be persistent despite the rejection or cynicism they receive. She said that in the end, she felt she was serving the public by covering star athletes rather than tragedy.

“In this business you need to learn that to prove people wrong is a good thing for you, because people tend to doubt you,” said Casinelli.

-rebeca.piccardo@fiusm.com

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