State HS Associations demanding more coverage of girl's sports

Next up, the NCAA will demand the same amount of money for the women's basketball tournament as it gets for the men's tournament.

 

When I was starting out at my current job, I heard the "biased against girls sports" argument a lot.
I don't hear it as much now, but I do hear it occasionally.
It's an unwinnable argument. Nothing you can say can change anyone's minds and whatever you say will make you look worse.
When you get right down to it, bias is in the eye of the beholder.
Just a few random thoughts.

 

h.s. coverage = Pandora's Box

 

It helps the argument for girls' sports coverage when the teams are successful. In my area, our girls' basketball and track teams are very good, and we never hear a peep out of anyone about the coverage because the quality of the teams dictates that we pay attention. On the flip side, our volleyball and softball teams are terrible. Every so often we hear from people about that. We do our best to make sure we're doing something on those sports regularly, and if people complain, the answer is that successful teams get our attention, regardless of gender.

But if you've got a problem getting enough coverage for certain sports, a quick and easy way to address it is to do sport-by-sport notebooks. Pick three or four volleyball coaches and call them up to BS about how their season is going, and use that conversation to give them a reminder about submitting their results. It'll give you some copy on that sport so you can quiet the complaints, and it'll give you ammo to tell the complainers, "hey, we talked to your coach, did a notebook item on you and reminded him to send his results, but he hasn't done it."

 

Athletic association: We demand more girls coverage.

News outlet: Fuck off.


End of discussion

 

We'll meet your demands as soon as you let us tell you what to do.

 

If I had this problem, I think I'd like to ask them "Well, what do you mean by more coverage?" If they can't cite anything specific, they're blowing smoke up your ass -- and theirs. If they start crying Title IX, remind them you're a private business, not a government agency, and wish them a nice day.

 

This would cross-thread well with the crazy shit hs associations do thread. In my state, the association does such a poor job of media relations, a demand for anything would be met initially with crickets and later with an expose' series on the association's finances. They know this. So on the "more girls coverage" issue, there's detent.

 

Why wouldn't the athletics association appeal directly to the media for more coverage? If this is true, seems like a backassward way of getting what you want. And for what cause? Public perception? If people are upset about a perceived lack of girls sports coverage, they'd be a lot more likely to complain to media outlets than the state assocation.

I got an e-mail from someone complaining I didn't cover enough girls sports. I responded by outlining what I had done in the previous months. No respose. Next year, around the same time, another e-mail accusing me of not covering girls sports. I responded, but at the end it occured to me that a) it was probably the same guy and b) he didn't have any specific grievances, making me think he was sending this to every media outlet in hopes of ... whatever it was he wanted. But since I put the work into responding, I sent it anyway.

Most people aren't going to complain about lack of gender coverage -- they either disapprove in the abstract but don't have enough interest to say anything, or they have a very specific dog in the fight (kid, sister, neighbor's kid) and will make their protest accordingly.

 

I'd say that in most instances the parents don't give a shit about high school sports at all ... until there kid gets to high school. Then they pick up the paper once, don't see a feature on their kid's team, and e-mail or call complaining about a lack of coverage.

 

No more calls ... WE HAVE A WINNER!

Luckily, my editor is on to this routine too. She gets the letters, forwards them to me and I reply with the standard four lines, which say, basically, "get your kids' coach to call us!"

 

Tell them to rent a space, buy a used printing press, start up a website, sell some ads, hire a few out of work journos and other staffers, go to the game, write down what they see and write it up.

If they are not willing to do that, then they should shut the fuck up.

Should the newspaper demand that they end every game two hours before deadline no matter how much time is on the clock?