Abstract

This work sought to accurately find out the reasons why women shy away from sports journalism. In line with the main objective, The researcher aims at finding out how specialization in the journalism profession affects the view of women seeing sports as a male domain thus not engaging themselves in sports journalism.

In order to satisfy the specific objectives of the study, a structured questionnaire was developed, pre-tested, and administered to targeted subscribers using a simple random sampling method. A total of 50 respondents were contacted. A descriptive method of data analysis was used to analyze the data collected from the field.

The findings revealed that female journalists have a positive role to play in sports journalism and they are being shy because of their nature and how demanding reporting sports. The study, therefore, recommends that females should be encouraged into sports journalism and should be given more effort and control so that sports journalism can be upgraded.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

This research topic will aim at identifying why women/female journalists shy away from sports reporting or sports journalism which is also a very interesting field in journalism practice. It will also explain the challenges they face and how they go about its coverage, with regard to the problem, not forgetting the hypothesis, scope, significance of the work, possible research questions as well as key terms.

 1.1 Background to the study

The issue of female journalists shying away from sports journalism has been a cause for concern from the onset. Sports reporting is becoming as wide as news about sports use to be the talk of every media which occupied vast areas of print, online, and broadcast attention. Research has shown that sportsmen and women, in particular, are better known and better paid than others as the world is hungry for news about them.

Sports journalism plays an important role in attracting and retaining audiences but according to an observer it has really become “the heart of the battle to broadcast at newspaper gradation”. There’s been the criticism of male dominance in sports reporting and of course, the largely main audience of sports is linked to low numbers of female Journalists in the world of sports.

According to Deirdre O’Neil, (2015-2016) Theory practice and criticism give a detailed breakdown and analysis of all the data. Hence, all women need to engage in sports journalism.  Over the years and in recent times, sports have always been one of the main factors of unity among many individuals.

The documented history of sports goes back at least 3,000 years. And in Cameroon like any other part of the world, sports have come a long way from the colonial periods till recent times portraying success in various domains like football, handball, volleyball, basketball, wrestling, and boxing. Recently in the southwest region of Cameroon, the rates of female sports Journalists are relatively low with just about 2% trying to get engaged in to sports Journalism.

According to findings, women have more advantage in excelling in the world of sports than men given that the number of female sports journalists all over the world is very small and so these few women attract the attention of the audience to see a woman engage in sports journalism.

1.2 Statement of the problem     

From observation, the challenge of women shying away from sports journalism is a result of the fact that they have little or interest in football and other sporting activities hence, don’t find interest in getting into the world of sports.; sports journalism has traditionally been seen as a male domain and research conducted in Australia says this tradition has not changed.

Surveys in the U.S reinforce findings showing the lack of female sports editors, writers, and reporters due to some prejudice faced by those women who became sports Journalists. Thus the rate of women in sports journalism continues to be of serious concern. Reports have it that only 5% of total sports coverage relates to activities by women and so women sports in such areas attract only a tiny 1% of total sponsorship causing salaries and facilities for women sports to be minuscule by comparison.

Because of the little attention female journalists pay to sports reporting and coverage especially local sports, the population of the South West region have been cultivated by foreign channels, with a passion to see female reporters on those foreign platforms report sports while being passive at the local level, leading to a continuous or consistent drop in the value and setting of the local sports. This problem brings us to the reason why the researcher aims at digging deep into getting the Genesis of the problem, weaknesses and to come up with a possible solution finding to help curb the problem.

1.3 Research Questions

1. What causes women to shy away from sports journalism?
2. What effect does sports reporting have on women?
3. Does sports reporting really matter on gender?

1.4 Hypothesis

H0: Female journalists shy away from sports journalism as well as reporting and anything that has to do with the field of sports because of a lack of interest in sports.

H1: Female journalists do not shy away from sports reporting.