Sportscasting and Sports Reporting: The Power of Gender Bias

Abstract

Comparison of the sportscasting on ESPN and CNN and sports reporting in The New York Times and USA Today revealed the very high degree of embedded favoritism toward men’s sports and men athletes, even at times when major women’s sporting events were peaking in newsworthiness. The quantity of gender bias was significantly greater on ESPN’s SportsCenter than on CNN’s Sports Tonight, perhaps because of the somewhat different audiences they target. In addition, the amount of gender bias—measured three different ways—in the respected The New York Times also far exceeded that of USA Today, a disheartening finding about America’s so-called newspaper of record. Week-by-week crossmedia comparisons demonstrated the much greater marginalization of women’s sports in the electronic media, suggesting that newspapers provide a somewhat more positive model for sports journalism.