ETV: News @ 9 Sports News & Comment Analysis- 04/12/2018

Name of monitor: Madikana Matjila

Name of programme: ETV News time

Date of broadcast: 04 December 2018

Time: 20H00 – 20H30

Genre: Analysis and Commentary  

Theme: Sports, awards

Skills: Ethics, Portrayal ,Language,Perspective

GBV focus explicit or implicit? Implicit

Gem Classification: Gender Aware

If no link provide the artefact upload on dropbox

Brief description of news story:

Ada Hagerberg is honoured with an award of the best female soccer player. During the award collection and celebration session a male host asks her if she could twerk. This request sparked outraged and social reaction across the globe. E TV in their sport news covered the story, but focused only on the analysis.

Why it has been given this GEM classification:
● The angle of the story on e TV condemns the host’s commentary and describes it as distasteful.
● This story highlights gender sensitivity in commentary.

The story about Ada Hegerberg being asked to twerk when she collected her award, shows lack of sensitivity on the part of the host. She had just won an award and almost immediately, the host’s sexualisation of Hegerberg overshadowed her achievements. Soccer is a sport that is male dominated and women’s soccer does not enjoy the same amount of funding and media coverage globally. This particular story highlights the ignorance of some journalists and media organisations when it comes to women in sports. The story also shows that women are subjected to subtle abuse and harassment in their everyday lives.

Focus:

The story on e TV offered a gender sensitive and aware analysis of the event. The coverage on e TV took a firm stance on the matter and called it out for being distasteful. This short analysis acknowledged the stereotypes attached to female athletes especially in soccer. It also condemned the action of the host. This position by the channel is gender sensitive. Commenting on the objectification of women on national TV shows the channel shows that e TV is not a passive broadcaster, and it is engaged in social change.

What is positive about the analysis is that e TV profiled the success of the player and focused also on her speech when receiving the award. Her talent, appreciation of the gesture, and her passion for soccer become the highlight of the analysis.

People in the news item:
This story featured the anchor a sport reporter, the manner of approach was executed well as the discussion inclusive of both male and female perspectives. There is a fair balance of views expressed from both. They showed a video of the incident and moved into an analysis. They both expressed shock at the incident.

Language:

The presenter and reporter expressed thought and sensitivity in their use of language. Their analysis was gender sensitive. They covered issues relating to women being reduced to sexual objects without using sexist and derogatory language. Both were prompting debate about this topic and addressing the ongoing injustices related to women in sport.

Visuals:

The channel plays a YouTube distributed video that captured the incident but did not focus the camera on the visual. They focused the attention of the viewer on the two presenters giving the analysis.

Angles and perspective:
This report is a good example of a gender aware story. The report takes a stance against the discrimination shown towards Hegerberg and also discourages acts of demeaning women in the media.

Conclusion:
The position by e TV of taking a stand against gender based violence is commendable. Although, this was an international story that had no immediate relevant in South Africa, the channel included it in its broadcast in its primetime slot.