Blogging speed skater
USA Today is hosting a blog for Brigid Farrell who is trying to secure a spot on the U.S. speed skating team for the winter games. You can read it here
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USA Today is hosting a blog for Brigid Farrell who is trying to secure a spot on the U.S. speed skating team for the winter games. You can read it here
Womenshoops blog sent an e-mail to the NYTimes sports section to complain about the poor coverage of women's sports - particulary women's college basketball - read their post here. It's important for people to voice their dissatisfaction - feedback to sports sections is key - hopefully someone on the other end is listening.
But I also want to point out a great story that the NYTimes did on Sunday about football players getting into colleges they would not have otherwise by getting a diploma from a nonexistent highschool - this is the type of enterprise reporting that we need more of in sports journalism. I've been looking at a lot of NCAA numbers/reports for a story I'm working on about the three women head coaches here at Northeastern - - the $$$ devoted to and earned by football programs alone in this country is astonishing. And where there is lots of $$$, there is going to be corruption, cutting corners, cheating, etc. The sports media need to do a better job at peeling back the many layers of the business of sports.
NPR has an audio piece on a "soccer league in New York City caters to women who grew up in Latin America and were forbidden to play soccer when they were children in their home countries."
As an ex-cross country runner, it was nice to see this piece in the New York Times today on the N.C.A.A. Division I cross-country championships. Johanna Nilsson, a junior at Northern Arizona, won the race.
Bear with me while I catch up on stories I've been following - it was a busy semester.
Kim Ng was a close second, but the GM job for the Los Angeles Dodgers went to Ned Colletti. Here's New York Times take on the Dodgers missing out on a chance to make history.
Eric Mcerlain who writes the OffWingOpinion hockey blog got permission to sit in the Washington Capitals owner's box as a blogger to do an interview during a game. Here's his account. I think it's great he got access for so many reasons. One, he was able to get by that barrier of not being an "official" sports journalist. Not that everyone is a fan, but ESPN's Bill Simmons (Sports Guy) has created this mini-movement of sports bloggers (who have other jobs to pay the bills) who have found or are finding their voices online writing about a sport they love - many write in a more personal, everyday person kind of style not found in the mainstream press. They also follow and link to numerous sports news Websites and act as an excellent resource for finding stories on their sport/team.
Sometimes I think that the future of women's sports media coverage is in online coverage of the sports - whether it's blogs, or a news site built around a specific sport. Even ESPN's WNBA/college ball section on their Website beats any major newspaper's coverage of the sport. Fans who are fed up with lack of in-depth coverage can start a blog or a Website and take it from there. Womenshoops blog is an excellent example of two people who love women's basketball, follow and link to any mainstream press available while also commenting, ranting, praising, etc. It's a great resource for fans and pulls together all the scattered and inconsistent coverage of women's basketball. I'm looking for other blogs/sites that cover other women's sports - basketball seems to have quite a few - if they're out there, let me know.
The Associated Press takes a look back at Anika Sorenstam's stellar year. (from the Miami Herald)
Marie Hardin, the associate director for the Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State who has been doing some great work on women, sports and the media, sent me this link to a press release on their most recent study that looks at the gender and racial make-up of sports news desks at the nation's largest newspaper. Some interesting numbers here -- according to the report "only about 11 percent of full-time employees in sports at the nation's largest newspapers are women" and "minorities comprise only about 12 percent of sports department employees."
The Boston Globe has a nice spread today on women's college basketball (the NCAA tournament is coming here in April) It was such a relief to see four large pics of women b-ball standouts on the FRONT page of the sports section instead of Theo Epstein's mug, which we've been looking at for days ....
Newsday has an article on Kim Ng, who inteviewed for the general manager position for the LA Dodgers - if she got the job, she would be the first woman GM in the business. (Thanks to OffWing Opinion, where I first saw this link)
