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News Extra
Catch 22 for 30% quota (5 September)
 The average AFL player will earn over $200,000 in 2007, with top players commanding over $1 million. Meanwhile, an elite netball player is lucky to receive a salary of $4000. While male athletes are revered as national heroes, women’s sport continues to struggle for funding, sponsorship, recognition and participation at grassroots levels.
A recent submission to the Federal Government’s inquiry into women in sport and recreation argued that, to address these problems, the media should devote a mandatory 30% of sport coverage to women’s sport. The idea is that more media coverage would lead to more sponsorship, better role models and, eventually, equality for women’s sport. But the suggestion has sparked debate about the media’s role – should it merely reflect market forces or does it have a social responsibility as well?
Ann Mitchell, co-ordinator of the Women in Sport Media Group which proposed the figure 30%, said that women’s sport currently accounts for less than 10% of total sport coverage in the media. She said the lack of improvement over the past 20 years indicated a need for government intervention. “All media outlets need to promote and publicise women’s sport…in order to positively change the culture.”
Australian netball captain Liz Ellis, who also argued for mandated media coverage, likened the situation to the chicken and the egg. Which comes first – greater public interest or more media coverage? She argued that underlying the problem is a “cultural apathy” toward women‘s sport. “We can accept this, and hope that one day it changes. Or we can get mad as hell and do something about it,” Ellis said.
But Age sports writer Greg Baum has slammed as nonsense the move to put a quota on media coverage, arguing that women must earn the coverage. “The submissions implicitly assume that the media has an obligation to promote women’s sport. The media are not obliged to promote anything,” Baum wrote.
Kim Dalton, the ABC’s director of television, also expressed concern that applying a quota would require substantial changes to the legislation.
The ABC currently broadcasts an hour of netball highlights on Saturday afternoon, and has plans to use its new digital channel to show more women’s sport. Along with SBS, it is responsible for most of the women’s sport on free-to-air TV, together accounting for 68% in 2000.
But in her submission, Mitchell argued that the ABC and SBS do not attract mass public attention, and that women’s sport needs the support of the commercial channels as well.
Ellis has conceded that the commercial channels do not owe women’s sport anything. Yet, she has also argued that if “one of these networks took a sport like netball and applied the same production values to it as they apply to football or cricket, it would very likely prove a ratings winner”.
But Baum is adamant that introducing a quota would not help achieve this scenario. He points out that a quota is a measure of quantity, not quality; journalists’ attitudes are reflected in their work and, if they see women’s sport as a joke, they are just as likely to send it up. In Baum’s opinion, “media coverage is only ever a mixed blessing”.
A 1996 study into the Australian media’s portrayal of women in sport found that female athletes are represented very differently to their male counterparts. The media concentrated on women’s physical appearance, frequently portrayed them as girls, detracted from their athleticism and often described them “dissolving into tears”.
Baum points out thatsome of The Age’s chief sports writers are now women and argues that women are making progress as decision-makers in the media. But in an interview with ABC Radio, Mitchell claimed: “We’re still going along the traditional cultural lines, where men have made decisions in the press, on the media, in all media outlets, as to what has been, or ought to be covered.”
Her submission also recommended that further study be carried out to see whether media coverage has improved since 1996.
For Ellis, the most concerning thing is the high drop-out rate of teenage girls playing netball. “They're subliminally told by the media their sport is not as important as boy sport, because it's just not getting that much coverage.”
By Anna Lycett
To read a transcript of Ann Mitchell’s interview with ABC Radio see: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/sportsfactor/stories/2006/1709896.htm#
For Greg Baum’s article see: http://www.theage.com.au/news/sport/count-me-out-women-must-earn-coverage/2006/08/04/1154198332013.html
To read an opinion piece by Liz Ellis see: http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/cmon-sport-let-women-reach-their-goal/2006/06/13/1149964529998.html
For submissions to the inquiry into women in sport and recreation, including that of the Women in Sport Media Group, see: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/ecita_ctte/womeninsport/submissions/sublist.htm
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