A Look Back at Our History: How the Challenges Facing Women in Sports Media Have Changed — and Stayed the Same

Panelists: Robin Herman, former New York Times sportswriter; Tracy Dodds, past president of Associated Press Sports Editors; Christine Brennan, USA TODAY columnist; Amy Shipley, Washington Post Olympics reporter; Antonya English, St. Petersburg Times’ University of Florida beat writer
Moderator: Meri-Jo Borzilleri, freelance sportswriter

By Jenny Vrentas
2007 AWSM intern at the Newark Star-Ledger

Robin Herman enrolled in Princeton in 1969, the first year the university admitted women. There were just 100 women on campus, she remembers, and none on the staff of The Daily Princetonian, which she joined as a freshman. Each writer on the paper was assigned a news beat and a sports beat. But when Herman looked at the assignment board, the spot under sports next to her name was empty.

“Why haven’t you given me a sports beat?” she quickly asked the editor.

The editor told her he thought she wouldn’t be interested in covering a sport.

“But why should I do half the work of everyone else?” Herman responded.

She was promptly given the rugby beat. Herman later covered several Ivy League sports for the paper and served as sports editor. After graduation, she was hired as The New York Times’ first female staff sports reporter.

Herman, also the first female reporter to enter a locker room for men’s professional athletes, described the situations she found herself in as being very symbolic and a statement for society. As the panelists spoke, Herman’s main mantra was echoed by progressively younger women: command respect, in both the newsroom and the locker room.

Washington Post Olympics reporter Amy Shipley, who entered the business nearly 20 years after Herman, remembered Alonzo Mourning’s poor treatment of her in NBA locker rooms. After one game, she told him his behavior was inappropriate and walked away.

“Don’t be a doormat,” Shipley said. “You can’t change a jerk, but you can set the boundaries of what’s acceptable.”

Redefining the boundaries of what is acceptable and normal is what women in sports have worked toward over the past few decades. USA TODAY columnist and television commentator Christine Brennan believes change in the business has come in waves of five years, and she said that’s a reason to be optimistic about the future.

Entering locker rooms is no longer a hurdle, and doing anything and everything to be accepted in the business isn’t necessary.

“I used to want to be one of the boys, and I don’t want to be that anymore,” said Antonya English, the University of Florida beat writer for the St. Petersburg Times. “I want to be a respected member of the media.”

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