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LEAD-IN BY HOST FRED SCHIFF: In tonight's media criticism, Brandon Moeller explores if there's a place for women amongst the Houston Chronicle's sports pages. CRITICISM: In the third chapter of his 1998 book News is a Verb, newspaperman Pete Hamill writes about the importance of attracting women to the news. A newspaperman for almost four decades, Hamill once served briefly as the New York Daily News' Editor IN Chief. Hamill writes that it's important for women to be involved in all levels of a newspaper's editorial process. But what about sports? Hamill writes: "The sports section can't be a closed shop for men; it must attract more women sports reporters, assign them to major sports, and make them visible to the readers. This is good journalism, but it also makes good business sense." Hamill argues that women are also interested in sports, that 40 percent of basketball fans are women and that they are also interested in seeing more coverage of women's sports. I like Hamill's recommendation of inclusiveness and think women journalists should be allowed to write sports, if they so desired. But how does the Chronicle feel about it? For this small study, I analyzed the last 5 issues of the Chronicle's sports section, Sunday through Thursday. I was particularly interested in female writers within the sports section, what they were covering and how they were covering it. In Sunday through Thursday's Chronicle, 14 articles written by six female reporters were published in the paper. In the same period, 28 different male bylines were in the section. In the five days I examined, Niki Herbert wrote four articles, Janny Hu and Sarah Hornaday were published three times each, Megan Manfull filed two and Jayne Custred and Patti Much both contributed one each. These female reporters wrote about such sports such as high school football, college football, NFL football, high school basketball, college basketball, NBA basketball – heh, it is football and basketball season - high school track and field, marathon running and one wrote a story about a new Houston-area golf course that is being built by some rich architect. Admittedly, I did not read every article in the Chronicle's sports pages in the past five issues. However, I did read the ones written by the female writers and was immensely impressed by several memorable articles. One Tuesday article, written by Herbert, detailed how a Baytown high school quarterback saved the day and paved the way for the playoffs by playing offense and defense. In Wednesday, Hu wrote about Rockets' forward Eddie Griffin's game-saving blocks and how his ambition is leading the league in blocks. Also on Wednesday, Hornaday had a informative story about college basketball recruitment and who has made early commitments. And on Thursday Manfull wrote an front-page feature article about the Santa Fe football team that has finally made it to the playoffs after 55 unsuccessful seasons. In the five issues I examined, women writers only made it on the front page of the sports section twice. Like I stated earlier, around 20 percent of Chroncile sports writers are women. Considering that most of the females employed in the section have proven they can write a good story, shouldn't the Chronicle assign them to cover more stories to increase their visibility in the newspaper? The Chronicle should also be on the lookout for more female sports columnists, though they have several male counterparts, the only female columns published in my sample was one about marathon running written by Much and Hornaday's high school notebook. Or should we believe that the arena of sports is still dominated by men? Brandon Moeller, KPFT News, Houston
E-mail Brandon Moeller at brandonmoeller@hotmail.com .
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