| This quantitative study used a content analysis to examine the gender of sports journalist and how that influences their reporting. This study explores whether a reporter's gender has a relationship of high or low credibility in story assignment and reporting. This study highlights ESPN: The Magazine throughout an entire year of content that analyzes the journalist's gender with the type of story, gender of the athlete, type of the sport and width of the story. A total of 219 stories throughout the entire 2013 year from issues January through December were coded for journalist's gender, type of story, type of sport, width of story and athlete gender. Cohen's kappa was used to calculate reliability. This study found that female reporters are given less stories overall than male reporters and are given the less credible type of stories (briefs and features) while male reporters are given the more credible stories (cover, breaking news and event coverage stories). Female reporters were also found to cover stories with less width and would cover female athletes more than male athletes. Finally, despite the numbers not being significant, female sports reporters were found to cover 50% less on stories about football, baseball, basketball, boxing, hockey, Nascar, running and cycling compared to male sports reporters. The findings provide a foundation of why many female journalists in the area of sports are documented as having difficulty advancing in the field because of the perceived low credibility they face in the type of stories they report. The findings also provide a foundation for future research regarding other obstacles females face throughout sports journalism in not only print, but in television sports reporting as well. |
