For women in sports journalism, social media ‘can be an ugly place’ – Chicago Tribune

In previous decades, a woman in sports journalism would have to learn to navigate the treacherous men’s locker room.

She knew the rules: Develop skin as thick as a rhinoceros callous. Never look down. Be ready with a quick comeback if a male athlete — or male colleague — tries to humiliate you. Choose your wardrobe carefully and conservatively.

For women in sports today, social media is the locker room of the 1970s and ’80s.

“For anyone in the public eye, social media can be an ugly place,” said Doris Burke, a veteran sideline reporter and color analyst for ESPN. “The tenor of the criticism and the pointed comments that are made at female journalists are certainly different. It can be disturbing to me how sexist the comments are, how personal, the value judgments that are made. There’s just a lot of ugliness.”

Julie DiCaro, an update anchor at WSCR-AM 670, stayed home from work last week because of a threatening tweet that included disturbing personal information. She has become a magnet for misogynists on Twitter because of her tweets about the Patrick Kane sexual assault investigation.

It’s infuriating that she had to decide between work and safety.

DiCaro is not alone facing an online culture that berates women for being women, especially women in male-dominated fields.

Don’t get me wrong. Male sports reporters also receive unacceptable insults through social media.

But women are vulnerable to more malicious online attacks.

A 2014 Pew Research study showed that all women are more likely to be exposed to sexual harassment online (25 percent of women to 13 percent of men) and stalking (25 percent of women to 7 percent of men).

“The difference is (for women) it can be very nasty and vile and goes into sexually derogatory insults,” ESPN.com senior writer Dana O’Neil said. “It goes into a place men never have to deal with. It’s not about sports. It’s not about writing. It’s about your gender and how I can demean you and make you feel worthless because of your gender.”

NBC-5 sports reporter Peggy Kusinski welcomes critiques from viewers. But too often, she said, her appearance gets attention, not her work.

“We have to be able to take the criticism,” she said. “I just have never heard criticism about (men’s) appearance. If I’m wrong, tell me I’m wrong. That’s fine. But it seems to be more about physical appearance when they want to criticize women.”

When you’re fighting an uphill battle for credibility and equality, the last thing most of us want to do is then complain about something that could be interpreted as a weakness.

Maybe that’s part of what needs to change. We shouldn’t be intimidated into silence.

Managers and editors can help too. If more women were hired for non-traditional roles like columnists, TV and radio show hosts, play-by-play announcers and color analysts, it would help normalize women’s roles in the business.

Jessica Mendoza serves as a prime example after she recently became the first woman to work as an analyst on ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball.”

But will online harassment stop? I’d guess it won’t.

Most ignore the misogynistic tweets. Some choose to respond only sparingly. DiCaro said there is a power in exposing these men. “I feel like sitting there (and just taking it) almost does more damage,” she said.

Burke wonders if she would choose this same career today.

“The absolute vulgarity, the vicious nature of the attacks may have shaken my confidence as a young person,” Burke said. “When I was younger I may not have been able to endure that level of ugliness. I can’t imagine having to go through that. I wonder if it would have broken me or discouraged me enough that I would have chosen another avenue.”

Losing sports journalists of Burke’s caliber because of online harassment should depress any fan.

It’s accepted that sports fans often get carried away with their passion for their teams. But they should remember that while it’s fine to tweet your disagreement with a female reporter’s work or her opinions, leave our gender out of it.

At the same time, young women entering this field need to know that this online “locker room” is an inevitable and unfair burden.

They have the right to speak to editors about online threats. (And editors should take those concerns seriously.)

They should know that having an opinion on sports isn’t a job solely for men.

But they also need to realize that Joe from Schaumburg who just sexually degraded you via Twitter has a total of four followers. These people aren’t as loud as they think.

“You have to have a thick skin,” O’Neil said, “but there are some things no person should have to tolerate no matter what your job is or what your gender is.”

sryan@tribpub.com

Twitter @sryantribune