Coverage of women in sport slammed

New Zealand Olympic Committee chief executive Kereyn Smith has ripped the media for what she called ‘‘horrifyingly bad’’ coverage of women’s sport.

Smith made the comment on Newstalk ZB yesterday, and went on to call for equal media coverage for male and female athletes.

It comes after UNESCO released a report stating only four per cent of global media content is dedicated to women’s sport, and only 12 per cent of sports news is presented by women worldwide.

Smith said the NZOC undertook a year-long study ahead of the 2016 Rio Olympics, and the numbers were only slightly better than the global numbers UNESCO’s twoyear report revealed.

‘‘Our research leading into that [Rio Olympics], generally about women’s sport in New Zealand, I think it’s about eight or nine per cent, so it’s horrifyingly bad.

‘‘There just hasn’t been the storytelling of women’s sport, and just the mass coverage of male sport continues to feed upon itself,’’ Smith told Newstalk ZB.

New Zealand athlete Nick Willis, who is based in the US, took to social media to defend the Kiwi media after Smith’s comments.

Smith admitted the New Zealand media fairly covered both women and men during the Rio Olympics, but coverage sagged ‘‘back to the sad norm’’ as soon as the Games concluded.

Netball received relatively good coverage, but as a whole, women’s sport didn’t just receive less coverage than men’s sport, the quality wasn’t as good, Smith said.

‘‘There’s a really big differences between the language around men and women’s sports, differences around where the stories are placed. Mass coverage of male sport continues to feed upon itself and you get more and more people talking about it and the women side of sport tends to get isolated.’’

‘‘Mass coverage of male sport continues to feed upon itself . . . the women side of sport tends to get isolated.’’

Kereyn Smith