"Plays like a man" comment receives criticism in the blogosphere

Grand Slams tend to give those of us who follow sports media coverage much to think about. This year’s Roland Garros was no exception.

After losing in the quarterfinals Dominika Cibulkova said that her opponent, Samantha Stosur, “played like a man.”

Cibulkova presumably intended this statement to serve as an explanation as to why she lost, because according to the young Slovakian, “it’s really hard to play against a man.” 

While the post-match interview was not included in the official news release on the Roland Garros website, it did make the headlines of sports media sites in the United States including FoxSports, Yahoo! Sports and Deadspin. The phrase also caught on internationally and appeared in the Australian Courier-Mail and the Croatian 24 Sata, among others.

Cibulkova is not the first person to compare Stosur to a man. In 2010, Serbian tennis player, Jelena Jankovic said that Stosur gave her no chance to win because she played almost like a man. Jankovic added that Stosur’s game was “impressive.” Ai Sugyama made a similar statement. These were supposed to be compliments.

Similarly, Stosur is not the first female tennis player to be called a man by her peers. A few years ago Amelie Mauresmo received the same treatment.

This time, however, we encountered some critical commentaries in the online discourse.

Deadspin mildly called Cibulkova’s comment “bad timing.”

Better yet, a couple of bloggers associated with the Women Talk Sports blog network offered an analysis of the sexism and homophobia embedded in that comparison.

The blogger behind After Atlanta explained what the comment tells us about gender performance and sexuality here, while Courtney Szto argued that “playing like a man” should not be considered a compliment for female athletes and here is why.

As long as female athletes are expected to conform to the rules of femininity and as long as the idea that male athletes are superior to female athletes prevails, we are likely to hear that a female athlete "plays like a man." Yet, a critical analysis of this comparison in the online space carries the potential to change the dominant media discourse and, subsequently, perhaps even ideologies of gender.

With this year’s Roland Garros, we seemed to have moved forward in that regard.

-- Dunja Antunovic 

Twitter users compare men's basketball to the women's game

Although Butler left the floor feeling low after the men’s basketball national championship, it was women’s basketball that took a beating Monday night. In describing just how bad and boring the men’s final was, users of the site repeatedly compared it to the women’s game, implicitly discounting the sport in the process.

CBS analyst Roland S. Martin wrote “It is not a stretch to say that the women’s national championship game will be far more interesting.” Another blogger tweeted “I’d rather watch the #WNBA than this #NationalTitleGame.” ESPN.com’s “The sports guy” tweeted: April 2011: The month that women’s college basketball caught up to men’s college basketball. A

Make no mistake: The men’s national final was painful to watch. The two teams set a new record for lowest combined first half points total and Butler shot a horrid 18.8 percent from the field – the lowest mark ever in a national final game. And although UConn took home the trophy, they won by scoring just 53 points on 35 percent shooting.

The game was boring. Illustrating just how boring it was by comparing it to women’s basketball denies the women’s game the legitimacy it deserves. As Dave Zirin wrote, also on twitter. “I hope every last person hating on this game, watches the NCAA women's finals tomorrow. See two teams actually make shots.”

--Erin Whiteside

Curley Center Hosting First Online Chat

Sports Journalism Chat
Addresses Bloggers, Credentialing

Although many major news organizations have found homes on the Internet, some reporters who cover sports online still struggle to get access to the events they write about.

At the same time, traditional media outlets continue to fight for access for their reporters while sports leagues and teams, often with their own media outlets and stakeholders, control access to events.

Those competing responsibilities, differing outlooks and resulting decisions about who can and cannot officially cover events will be addressed at 1 p.m. Monday, Oct. 18, during the first online chat conducted by the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism.

“Who Should be in the Press Box and Why? Issues in Credentialing Bloggers and Journalists” is free and may be accessed at http://comm.psu.edu/sports/live-chats online.

Participants include:
-- Michael Signora, vice president of football communications for the NFL;
-- Jerry Micco, sports editor of the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette;
-- Cheryl Coward of Hoopfeed.com; and
-- Malcolm Moran, the Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society and director of the Curley Center.

Marie Hardin, an associate professor of communications at Penn State and associate director of the Curley Center, will serve as moderator for the hour-long session.

The Curley Center explores issues and trends in sports journalism through instruction, outreach, programming and research. The Center's undergraduate curricular emphasis includes courses in sports writing, sports broadcasting, sports information, sports, media and society, and sports and public policy, which is cross-listed with the Penn State Dickinson School of Law.

- The Curley Center for Sports Journalism

Sports blogging: Don't look for big payoff

Ad Age yesterday published an article looking at the ways free labor is supplying major blog-driven sites such as BleacherReport.com. Bleacher Report, which reportedly will turn a profit this year, uses content provided for free in deals with major media outlets.
Meanwhile, guys like Andrew Brining, featured in the article as a writer who has contributed about 500 articles (gratis) to the site over the past two years, may see blogging as a ticket to a paid career in sportswriting. Brining said, 'If I am good at this, the compensation will come.'
Call it the Bill Simmons syndrome. In our survey of sports bloggers last summer, about 70 percent said they'd take a paid sportswriting job if they could get one.
As the Ad Age article makes clear, though, there are plenty of Brinings out there, willing to write about sports and a host of other topics -- for free. The result may be a business model that discourages organizations from paying for quality reporting and writing. In other words,the free-content trend drags down the entire sports-reporting enterprise.

Sports Journalism, Athletes in for a Big Challenge

TMZ.com, a leading gossip and celebrity news web site, has entered the sports media market, launching TMZ Sports at the start of the year. And if its recent coverage of the Gilbert Arenas story is any indication, established sports media outlets are facing a legitimate contender in this saturated industry. Already the web site scooped everyone from ESPN to the Washington Post by first reporting that Arenas does not have a license to carry the firearm he is accused of brandishing in the Wizards’ locker room, and that according to “law enforcement sources,” the locker room is monitored by surveillance video, making it a real possibility that footage of the incident exists.

As a gossip web site, TMZ Sports will have to prove its reporting accuracy in order to solidify a reputation as a reputable source for sports media news. But TMZ Sports isn’t just covering sports in the traditional sense; rather, it is building off what TMZ.com does well: gossip. In doing so, the web site is challenging unspoken agreements between athletes and media that private lives generally stay private. The site has held no punches in its Tiger Woods coverage, even posting grainy cell phone photos of Woods in various nightclubs, which directly contradict the pristine image Woods has worked so hard to create. In just a few short weeks, the site has posted everything from documents in Shaquille O’Neal’s divorce proceedings to pictures of baseball player Matt Kemp grabbing the backside of his girlfriend, Rihanna.

If TMZ Sports stays on this course, major athletes will have a major problem. Without a free pass from the media, the private, sometimes unsavory and always un-manufactured side of our “All-American” athletes will be on full display for the world to see. Considering that a carefully guarded image is critical for marketing (and financial) success, athletes have a real reason to be nervous: After all, if TMZ Sports been around 20 years ago, everyone’s favorite Nike pitchman might not have enjoyed such public admiration had stories and pictures of his now-infamous gambling habit been so readily available.

--Erin Whiteside

Sports bloggers, journalists: Not so different

In a new piece posted on the Tucker Center Web site, I share research by the Curley Center that compares the attitudes of journalists and bloggers toward women's sports and Title IX.
It turns out that they're quite similar, which may explain why so much of what we see in new media looks like what we see in old media. Another dynamic driving the tone in the sports blogosphere is the fact that it's still dominated by men -- almost to the exact same degree as that found in newspaper sports departments. What we need to explore is why women, when the institutional barriers to employment are removed, generally shy away from writing and commentating about sports -- despite the fact that Title IX has turned sports into a way of life for millions.

Focus: Women's sports and social media

Research in the Curley Center has recently turned to sports and social media -- especially in relationship to the opportunities and challenges for coverage of women's sports. The Tucker Center at the University of Minnesota is also focusing on this important topic. The Tucker Center's blog has two new entries that look at coverage of women's sports and at social media.
Dave Zirin's entry on coverage of women's sports covers some familiar territory for women's sport advocates as he recounts the stereotypes that are common themes (sexpot or mother, for instance). He doesn't extend his discussion into the sports blogosphere -- although the stereotypes he addresses are, unfortunately, common there, too.
The other intriguing entry on the Tucker Center blog addresses the ways women's sports advocates see social media: as a land of opportunity, a place where women's sports coverage and community can flourish. But is that happening?
There are pockets where great things are happening, including WomenTalkSports.com. But, as I'll discuss soon, we're really seeing more of the same sexism, homophobia and non-coverage of women's sports that "old media" has always given us. The question then has to be: Why?

The case to credential bloggers

While the SEC and other sports-related organizations and consortiums are resisting inevitable changes in the ways sports are covered and consumed, we argue, in an opinion piece this week in Sports Business Journal, that organizations should instead look for ways to get bloggers into the press box. Some, such as NASCAR with its "citizen journalists," have already taken positive steps in that direction, having garnered publicity and offered a "carrot"to responsible bloggers. We also suggest that as bloggers get out into the environments about which they're writing, they're more likely to adopt the professional values of journalists who cover sports -- and that's a good thing.

Bloggers: Filling a gap in sports coverage?

The ongoing skirmishes between sports journalists and bloggers -- the most recent reflected in Mark Cuban's suggestion (in his blog, of all places) that some bloggers be publicly shunned by media organizations -- involve two groups that often work at odds but who generally describe themselves in similar ways.
That's according to a new survey just released by the Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State. The survey involved more than 200 bloggers who provide daily coverage of a variety of sports.
Not surprisingly, most bloggers in the survey were men, and most covered men's sports. Most say what they do is sports journalism -- although most don't use original reporting in their blogs, nor have they applied for credentials to a sports event.
They also hold themselves to different ethical standards than professional journalists; for instance, a very high percentage said journalists should verify information -- but the number dropped when bloggers were asked about their use of information.
It's not surprising that most bloggers we surveyed have never worked in a newsroom, nor do they have journalism degrees. I think what explains most of the gap between bloggers and journalists, in terms of attitudes and values, lies in the original reporting they do. I think that if sports organizations (and journalists) are truly concerned about the erosion of sports coverage via blogs, they should advocate for more blogger access to opportunities to do original reporting. That means more access to press boxes, media conference calls, and maybe even to locker rooms. The challenge is in how to make that happen, of course.

"You can just hear them now"

Will Leitch, Deadspin.com founder at the receiving end of Buzz Bissinger's famous tirade against bloggers months ago, told APSE sports editors that Web hits "pay the bills" for more traditional, mainstream coverage (of course, that's not really true...not yet, anyway). In his talk with editors, Leitch defended the idea of fan-driven coverage. He also argued that readers don't know -- or care-- about the difference between what they get on blogspot or at the newsday.com.
Our research with young people (under 25) supports Leitch's contention that the idea of sports journalism has really morphed into a lot of things, including team and league sites, blogs, and traditional reporting. The competition from all corners -- the armchair journalists and the PR writers, he argues, is good for journalists.
Leitch also reported an interesting discussion he had with Bob Costas, who asked him why "everyone online had suddenly become so mean."
Those fans with the snarky, sexist, homophobic comments and a willingness to say just about anything, it turns out, have been there all along, says Leitch, but now they have a voice. Of course, But the fact that these voices now have a forum isn't necessarily a positive development for sports or the culture.

Oh, the meanness of it all

A 90-minute town-hall style "Costas Now" on HBO last night used a combination of taped and live segments to explore the role of sports talk radio and bloggers in the evolution of sports media. Mitch Albom blamed sports talk radio for spreading negativity and meanness to other forums, including sports columns. During the discussion about blogging, Buzz Bissinger told Deadspin's Will Leitch that blogs are conduits of cruelty and dishonesty. Traditional-media journalists also had their turn on the hot seat; they were accused of being jealous of athletes (One has to wonder if they're also jealous of bloggers) and of fueling distrust by athletes. The whole thing makes one wonder...So who is responsible for the ugliness in much of sports coverage today?