Women's Sports Coverage Unfair, Says Panelist p.13

By: Dorothy Giobbe

A GLANCE AT the advertising in many newspapers' sports sections might give the impression that a sizable segment of the readership has a propensity for firearms and exotic dancers, or seeks remedies for bad credit and hair loss.
If newspapers want a greater variety and volume of ads in the sports pages, they should try to attract more female readers, said a panelist at the Newspaper Association of America publishers convention in New York.
"I don't find it surprising at all that there is very little advertising in sports sections," said Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation in New York.
"Until print media devote more space to women's sports ? or covering men's sports in a style appealing to female readers ? then companies that target female consumers won't be in the sports pages."
Lopiano said she isn't asking editors to change their sports reporting, but only that women's sports receive more "balanced and fair" coverage.
"What we have now is simply unacceptable," Lopiano said. Newspapers focus on "sensationalism in women's sports ? from the stabbing of [tennis pro Monica] Seles, the clubbing of [Olympic skater Nancy] Kerrigan, to the death of athletes with eating disorders, and [CBS golf analyst] Ben Wright's homophobia."
"When women's sports coverage becomes regular coverage, fascinating to women as well as men, and when the coverage becomes less sexist . . . then female readers will follow and so will the advertisers," Lopiano said.