‘Never do this again’: reporters face harassment
Female journalists at World Cup in Russia assaulted on the air
For women who work as sports reporters, #MeToo is not just a movement, it is often their everyday reality.
In just the past two weeks, two women were harassed while reporting at the World Cup in Russia, the episodes captured in widely viewed videos. One of the women, Julia Guimaraes, a reporter with TV Globo and SporTV in Brazil, was speaking on camera in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on Sunday when a man tried to kiss her on the cheek. In the video, Guimarães can be seen quickly dodging the man’s puckered lips.
“Don’t do this!” she told him. “Never do this again, OK?”
“I’m sorry,” the man can be heard saying in the background.
“Never do this to a woman,” she said. “Respect.”
The second woman, Julieth Gonzalez Theran, who works for the Spanish language division of the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, was ap- proached by a man this month while broadcasting live from Moscow.
Video of the episode, which was posted online by Deutsche Welle, shows Gonzalez Theran speaking in front of the camera when a man places his hand on her chest and kisses her cheek. During the episode she continued reporting as if nothing had happened.
Afterward, on Twitter, she addressed it. “The violent act of a fan is sad,” she wrote, but what is even worse, she added, is the reaction of those who do not see it as harassment.
Deutsche Welle also condemned the man’s actions, saying on Twitter: “Sexual harassment is not OK. It needs to stop. In football, and elsewhere.”
Even amid the rising awareness of sexual assault and harassment in all its permutations, these episodes illustrate how women are forced not only to defend themselves while on the job, but also to do the work of explaining what types of behaviour are considered unacceptable. Women working in sports journalism are subject to “horrible abuse,” Suzanne Franks, who leads the journalism de- partment at City University of London, said Tuesday.
That abuse can come in many forms: angry tweets, verbal confrontations, groping. One of the most egregious examples was that of sports reporter Erin Andrews, who was secretly videotaped naked by a stalker in a hotel room in 2008. She was awarded $55 million (U.S.) in a lawsuit, a case that shone a spotlight on the rampant harassment faced by women in her field.
Franks has spent years researching the barriers women encounter in sports journalism, both when trying to enter the field and while working.
“In the sports area there is still such a sexist strain,” Franks said. “It hasn’t woken up to all of the advances women have made over the years.” The man who grabbed Gon- zalez Theran eventually came forward to apologize, saying his actions stemmed from a bet he made with a friend “that I could kiss a reporter on the cheek on the air” and in the process, he said, he accidentally touched González Therán’s chest with his left hand.
“I acted carelessly and did not think that I would cause you confusion and shock,” he told her via Skype in a conversation between the two that was posted online. “I know that your job is very hard and I hope that you will never face another such incident in your career.”
Gonzalez Theran accepted his apology.
“I refuse to be a victim,” she told him. “I just want to continue with my job, reporting about football — about the joy and emotions of this great event.” FIFA and the World Cup Russia Local Organizing Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the two reporters.
Elizabeth Willis Frogge, an associate professor of broadcast journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism who cofounded the school’s student chapter for the Association for Women in Sports Media, recently attended the association’s annual convention on sexual harassment.
“Things are gradually changing, but it’s still not where it needs to be,” she said.
Additionally, female sports journalists are especially vulnerable to criticism, she said, in part because of an assumption that women do not know as much about sports as men.
“Things are gradually changing, but it’s still not where it needs to be,” ELIZABETH WILLIS FROGGE ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF BROADCAST JOURNALISM, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI