Women’s coverage big concern
Reporting is not keeping pace with growth in sports
See it, be it is the catchphrase trotted out to champion visibility in women’s sports. Slowly our world view has shifted, helped by new domestic competitions and multiple World Cups coming to Aotearoa.
There are now more women’s sports to follow. But if a match is played and no one is there to cover it, can we really see the champions we want to be?
Last year, much was made of a new high in women’s sports coverage. Riding the high of the Black Ferns’ World Cup win, the media provided 28 per cent of their total sports coverage to women in the game for the first time. This was a 7 per cent jump from the year before and a cause for celebration.
The party didn’t last long, though, with the latest update having women’s sports news drop back down to 25 per cent of all those reported on.
Such a drop is a worry, as it coincides with a drop in the number of journalists employed across platforms. The Newshub sports room and its 6 o’clock bulletin will now be missing from these metrics. Last week, Zoe George, the last remaining woman in the Stuff sports team, was made redundant as part of their latest restructure. George was a champion for gender equity with a knack for telling the personal stories of mistreatment of athletes at the centre of our reviews.
She alone would be responsible for a couple of percentage points.
The demographics of who is in your newsroom matters. Assembling a stable of journalists who resemble those whose stories you are looking to tell will help insulate you from your unconscious bias and any perceived disconnect with the community.
When a story is of a sensitive nature, athletes are even more discerning in who they share it with. Without a woman in the room when these stories break, the media may struggle to tell them.
These editorial decisions will be insulated from the worst impact of their actions for a while. The Paris Olympic games offering parity for the first time in the number of men and women competing. These participation rates then mandating a greater parity in coverage. But beyond this, what will come?
With fewer people specialising in women’s sports and fewer platforms to tell their stories, a further decline feels inevitable. In times of recession, we have seen sports view women in the game as a luxury. When the Covid crunch hit, women wore the worst of it. The Black Ferns found out about their World Cup delay via email and were given no tests that year, while the All Blacks went on to play six.
Without dedicated investment and a commitment from newsrooms to meet metrics, we are likely to see a return to old patterns of coverage. Controversy and championships will be the only sure way women in sport make the news.
Take the Hurricanes Poua and their haka last week as a prime example. Super Rugby Aupiki was suddenly thrust into the headlines, when previously they received a sentence or two at the end of a match day wrap. One can only imagine how much that competition would grow from that level of media attention was dedicated every week.
A level of transparency is required from the media during their restructures as to why they are not committing the resources to women in sport. The data is clear, it is the fastest-growing part of sport, so editors need to answer why coverage is failing to keep pace with the action.
We have heard reports of the sit downs with their journalists but we need them to front up to these wa¯ hine athletes and their fans.
Fifteen per cent to 21 per cent, to 28 per cent and now back down to 25 per cent. That’s the trajectory of our storytelling for women’s sport since 2020.
The numbers themselves tell a story. A story of our media landscape not fully realising the potential of women in the game.
The women who tell the stories, the women who live them and the fans here waiting ready to devour it all.