Pledging allegiance to a particular sports team can be passed down through generations of sports fans. Such is the case for Lauren Hollis, a fourth-year Carleton University journalism student, Sportsnet’s Kristina Rutherford, and Amanda and Brittany Van Frankfoort, the videographers behind Timeout with the Twins.
Hollis’ loyalty to the Miami Dolphins and Toronto Maple Leafs came from her late father, Gary. Rutherford’s father John had themed Cleveland Browns and Maple Leafs onesies set aside when she was just a child. The Van Frankfoort sisters’ passion for all types of sport stemmed from parents Ron and Carol, who often coached.
Despite being at different ages and stages in their careers, all four women turned their love for sports into part of their careers within the media. As the gender dynamic within the journalism industry is slowly changing, more females are emerging in newsrooms. However, the ‘boys’ club’ stigma in the sports media industry can remain a significant barrier for female journalists.
“I think in a lot of situations, it’s just assumed that men have this proprietary interest in sports, or this belonging that they’re a man so they get to be there. And for women, a lot of the time you feel like you have to prove yourself, which isn’t fair, and it isn’t right. But it’s just how it is,” said Brittany.
For the Van Frankfoort sisters, there was an incident early on in their careers, after graduating from Carleton’s journalism program that stuck out.
Thanks to some notable mentoring and strong networking, the twins were given the opportunity to interview professional golfer Brooke Henderson and her sister Brittany–who acts as her caddie–for a sister-on-sister interview.
The two ventured out to Eagle Creek Golf Club in Dunrobin at 7 a.m. where the Henderson sisters would be playing for the day, and prepared for their 10-minute interview slot. They scoped out the best possible interview location, set up chairs and rehearsed all their questions before sitting down together. What they described as a “cloud nine feeling” disappeared soon after.
Back at home, after telling their family and friends about the invigorating experience, Brittany opened Twitter. To her horror, she saw their story had been plagiarized by another reporter.
“It was like the most heart wrenching, disappointing, devastating, unbelievable[feeling].”
“Scrolling through, like there’s … punch to the gut [that] takes your breath away, that kind of feeling,” said Amanda.
“It was entirely our interview in print, right in front of us.”
The range of emotions quickly shifted towards doubt as the sisters started to question themselves.
“At first, we weren’t really sure, if we were justified in our feeling that we’d been ripped off,” said Amanda. “Looking back on it now, I can’t believe we had those kinds of feelings because, of course, that entire interview was plagiarized and we had a right to be upset about it.”
After a lot of thought and conversation with their mentors, they reached out to the company who published the story. Their initial contact was with a female editor who was “very genuine, highly apologetic and really disappointed” regarding what happened. The concern was then addressed with the managing editor, the editor-in-chief and the reporter.
However, the response from the middle-aged male editor-in-chief was not as apologetic. “The only way to describe his email was, I mean, besides disappointing and disrespectful, was belittling, patronizing, condescending,” said Amanda.
“It was kind of a boys’ club ‘protecting their own’ vibe that we got from that response.“
“Would that reporter have acted the same way if it was a male that had done the interview? We don’t know,” she said.
Though statistically outnumbered by their male coworkers, some female journalists have been fortunate enough to not have experienced situations like the VanFrankfoort sisters. At Sportsnet, Rutherford said she has worked alongside a predominantly male team and said being one of the only female voices in the room helped her career.
“It is a boys’ club. It absolutely is. But there are so few female writers in sports that I would say I have an advantage over a male colleague in some respects because a lot of companies are looking for that diversity and those different opinions,” she said.
“And I think that actually works in my favor.“
“Sometimes editors are asking me to come up with an idea about a female athlete. And I think, ‘Well, you could look around the room and ask one of the men here too, you know, that perspective’s important as well,’” she added. “I do feel sometimes I get pigeonholed that way.”
Finding visual representation
More outlets have been making adjustments in gender dynamics by adding more female anchors and hosts to their live talent, but the numbers are far from equal. Between Canada’s two main sport networks, Sportsnet and TSN have a combined 173 journalists listed. Only 24 are women.
“If you’re looking at the anchors, there’s much more of a conscious effort for gender parity. You see men and women sitting equally at a desk,” said Brett Popplewell, a journalist and professor at Carleton University.
In recent years, the same major networks have started introducing all-female panels. This year, for international women’s day on March 8, the NHL is having an all-female broadcasting crew cover the game between the Calgary Flames and Las Vegas Golden Knights.
However, some journalists see this as only a quick fix, and say more systematic change needs to happen to truly keep female voices in the industry.
“It’s always good to have some kind of representation that’s not the same kind of what we’re used to seeing in sports, which is usually again, like white men,” said Hollis.
“But, that’s kind of like a surface change and it’s not a systematic change.”
“It’s almost like they’re slipping her in there to be like, ‘See we have a woman doing something,’” said a Toronto-based sports photographer.
“Then one time I did see an all women’s panel, but it was only because it was a women’s game.“It’s almost like they’re telling us all women can do this, but you can’t talk about the men’s game,” they added.
“You can talk about the women’s game all you want, but we’re going to have men talk about the men.”
However, what the increase in female faces on television does is allow young sport enthusiasts to see themselves represented on the screen when watching sports games with their families, like these female journalists did.
“I often wonder, are women shying away from covering sports because they see so few representatives of themselves, you know, that idea that if you can see it, you can be it?” said Rutherford.
Kelcey Wright-Johnson, the first Canadian female NBA host based in the United States, who hosts for the Memphis Grizzlies, said growing up she never identified with anyone on television. Even in her career, she is often the only female within an office or broadcasting crew.
“People want to see themselves on TV. I want to watch TV and, see someone who I could be and I never even really had that growing up,” said Wright-Johnson, who’s also a graduate of both Ryerson University and Western’s journalism programs.
“I never watched ESPN and [thought] man that could be me.”
Hiring more female journalists across all platforms and levelling the playing field behind the camera, where the change in gender dynamic is less noticeable, is the next important step.
“I think if you go behind the cameras, and you start looking around, you find that there’s not sort of a 50/50 break-down,” said Popplewell.
“In an ideal world we [could] kind of be there now. We should be. I think it’s getting better,” he added.
“But it’s not getting better at a speed that would make a lot of people happy or proud of what has been accomplished.”
“We’re not naive enough to think that there is a perfect gender balance right now. But I think we’re heading in a good direction,” said Amanda.
“Maybe part of it is just making sure that young women know that this is an environment they can actually come into and thrive and dominate, and their voices are so important,” said Rutherford.
“I would say more important than ever because they’re different.”
Editor’s note: In the print version of this article it said the NHL’s all-female broadcast was to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of international women’s day. 2020 marked the 45th anniversary of international women’s day. The Charlatan regrets the error.
Feature image from file.
