Women’s needs to be dealt with, Sowetan
Date: September 19, 2002
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The Confederation of Southern Africa National Olympic Committees sets up a committee to build the participation of women in all sports.
The Confederation of Southern Africa National Olympic Committees sets up a committee to build the participation of women in all sports.
This article may be used to:
- Explore sources of news.
- Look at events versus issue-based reporting and how this affects angle, context and depth of coverage.
Trainer’s Notes
This case study is one of the rare stories on women’s participation in sports as a general angle. When women do feature on the sports pages, it is often in stories where they are ‘stars’ in either a sport where both women and men participate, or, they are featured in coverage on all women’s teams for basketball, netball, etc.
A story that analyses women’s participation in sports is a welcomed angle, but the story falls short of being a well-rounded and informative piece for several reasons.
Sources
The only source in the story is a male official in the Confederation of Southern Africa National Olympic Committees(Cosanoc). The male official therefore speaks on behalf of the women. Women in sports, female and male sports officials, female and male coaches should be among the sources to make the story balance and diverse in perspectives.
Event versus Issue
One reason for the limited sourcing in the story is that the reporter did not approach women in sports as an issue, but as a news angle which emanated out of what seems like a press conference to journalists following the sports organisation’s two-day meeting.
Women in sports is the focus used to begin the story, because perhaps this is what the spokesperson spoke on the most, but the story moves also into youth and the 2003 All Africa Games. The movement of the story between these three issues also indicates that the report is not based on newsgathering through research, data, a diversity of interviews to bring voices and perspectives to the issue, but is based on an event where information was given to the media.
Many stories which are not analytical and which do not report on issues from a gender lens, stem, from an events approach to coverage.
This approach led to limited coverage of an issue which has the basis for a good analytical piece. Women seldom feature on the sports pages which dominate a big part of the media’s content in
Context and depth
The angle of women in sports in
- Sex disaggregated data on where women and men are in sports;
- Total number of women in sports and the total number of men in sports in the region;
- More information on why women’s participation is low by interviewing women and men athletes , women and men coaches, sports officials, physical education teachers, etc..
- Besides The Confederation of Southern Africa National Olympic Committees, interviews with other umbrella groups at the national level to find out some of the challenges to women’s participation in sports; and
- Facts and figures (disaggregated by sex) on women’s participation in sports bodies like Cosanoc.
The story also does not give the reader basic information on the Women and Sports Commission set up to attract more women into sports. Is the commission comprised of all men; all women; or women and men and what’s the gender balance. Without a gender analysis, proper research and in-depth newsgathering skills, this potentially good story misses an opportunity to mainstream gender into a main news area and is professionally weak as a story.
Training exercises
Exercise one: Study the case study and discuss the following:
- Who speaks in the story?
- Who does not speak in the story?
- What voices and perspectives should be added for a diversity of views?
- Where does the decision-making power for women to participate in sports lie? Explain your answer using the message conveyed in the case study.
Exercise two: Based on the case study ‘Women’s needs to be dealt with’ discuss the following:
- Is this article based on a event or issue? Explain answer.
- What do you think is the best approach to the coverage of women’s participation in sports?
- Why do you think the case study presents the angle of women in sports in the way it does?
- Does the coverage give fair and equal space to women’s and men’s voices?
- Is the story analytical? Does it go beyond the event and raise the underlying issues?
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