Women, Media and the Olympics

There has been much made of the diversity that these London Olympics will deliver.   Every country will, for the first time, have a female representative.   Women can compete in every sport (yes, even boxing now!).   Just under half of the athletes at the Games are going to be women.   47% of our own kiwi team are women.

Predictions in UK are that the British women will bring home more medals than their male counterparts in these Games.  Women compete directly against men in 4 events; the equestrian disciplines of eventing, dressage and showjumping and one class in sailing (49er).  Expect to see women shine in the equestrian events (and hopefully our kiwi women!). The first competition of these Games will be the women’s football, when our own team takes the field to play the British team.

The IOC is making small inroads into equality in their structure, with 20 of their 106 board members being women.  Our own NZOC has an equal number of men and women.  For the first time ever, a woman (Debbie Jevans) is the Director of Sport for LOCOG.  

The Games has a very important role to play in changing society through sport.  You only have to look at the influence sport had on the public perception of apartheid in South Africa.  

Diversity is therefore an important and admirable goal for these Games.

NZOC’s website states that “Despite stunning progress on the sport field in the past 100 years, women’s representation off the field remains a serious challenge”   NZOC’s aim to improve this is to focus on the underrepresentation of women on sports’ boards and to this end, have commendably established a mentoring, information and support programme.

I believe this goal needs to go further.  Media shapes, changes, and re-enforces society’s values and attitudes.  It is therefore important to look at just who is bringing us the stories from the Games.

There are 21,000 journalists, photographers, camera operators and technicians from 190 different countries covering the Games this year – twice as many as the athletes.    Many of these are sent to cover the non-sport aspects of the Games, from security to transport.  No doubt there will be others to write the celebrity stories.   

I have not been able to establish how many women there are in this army of media people.   I have, however, seen how many of the 22 (approx) strong New Zealand print media team are women.   None.  Zip.  Nil.   Broadcasting does better, just.   From what I can ascertain, there are 6 women involved in radio or television for NZ at the Games.  

Why doesn’t our New Zealand media team have more women journalists?   Who decides who goes to the Olympics in the media team?   The male sports editors?  The mainly (or is it all, now) male editors?  Does NZOC have to step in to demand better of the media organisations before accreditation is granted?  

Come on New Zealand media.  Kiwis have a proud history of leading the way with diversity so why are we lagging so far behind with your team?