Today is St Brigid’s Day, an iconic figure in the story of Irish women and an appropriate day to kick off another of our regular monitoring periods for the amount of coverage given over to Women’s sport across a variety of sports media.
Over the next four weeks, we will track the percentage of coverage devoted to Women’s sport in terms of representation on the news agenda and also in terms of the imagery that is carried in the media.
What is monitored is measured and what is measured is managed. This month will see the Winter Olympics, the start of the Lidl Ladies Football League and the Littlewoods Camogie League, the start of the Women’s National League in football and the continuation of the Women’s Super League in England.
There are enough stories of women competing at the highest level to merit the support of media across the traditional and online sections but it will be instructive to see just what level that is now set at after a year in which Women’s sport dominated the narrative like never before.
Has it changed the baseline of the exposure which we should expect as fans, or will there always be a reason why the sports pages are still seen as a predominantly male preserve?
We will be monitoring seven different media outlets – The Irish Independent, the Irish Times, the Irish Examiner, RTE.ie, The 42.ie, The Irish Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph.
We will report on an occasional basis over the course of the month and discuss the detail of what we have uncovered as part of our Women in Sport conference taking place on Thursday, March 24th.
It is not intended as a stick to beat our media colleagues but rather a mirror to be held up so that we can make our own conclusions on whether there is enough balance.
As a starter, today’s numbers range from ten per cent of coverage to as low as one per cent and 12 images out of a total of 151.
Let the count continue…
Sport for Business Perspective
The search for equality is never even, and rarely without causing offence in some way. If you are sure of your motives though, and willing to point out where things can be done better, then it is a search that has to continue, not just on the award stages but in the everyday.
