This slide show is about sport and sexual harassment with female sports reporters.

1. Sport and Sexual
Harassment
BY: CHRISTINA WAWROWSKI

2. The Book Subject and Article Being
Analyzed
 From the book, Organizational Communication Approaches and
Processes, by: Katherine Miller. Chapter 6, Critical and Feminist
Approaches, Sexual Harassment.
 From Sports Illustrated, article written by: Richard Deitsch and posted on
August 16, 2015. Sexual Harassment Toward Female Sports Reporters is Far
Too Common.

3. The Main Purpose of the Article
 This article’s main purpose was to bring to light how often sexual
harassment really does happen within the sport industry, to show how
serious the act of sexual harassment needs to be taken, to specifically
highlight how the act affects the lives of the female sport employees, and
give some advice on how to deal with the problem.
 This is shown through:
 Stories from past sexual harassment encounters.
 Quotes given by women that have been affected.
 A specific story that leads to the advice and help.
 Which also leads to shedding light on the responsibility of these situations.

4. Sexual Harassment Stories and Quotes
 The women who gave their quotes and provided the stories asked to be and stay anonymous. This is
because there are consequences among colleagues, employers, and specifically the teams they
cover for sharing this information and by giving names.
 The first reporter discussed in this article has gone through multiple forms of sexual
harassment thus far.
 Her first experience happened in a Major League Baseball locker room where a player
pulled down his pants and then yelled her name, so she would turn around to see his
private parts.
 Her second experience happened when a player started to flirt with her before games and
then when on the road, he would call her to come down to his room. After rejecting his
many advances, he refused to speak to her for months.
 Her latest experience involves a NHL player spreading rumors that the two of them had
slept together.
 She said that the last rumor was the worst, “There was no paper trail, just my word against
his, and since I was fighting an unknown enemy, I couldn’t even defend myself.”

5. Sexual Harassment Stories and Quotes
 The next story was about a reporter that was new to the business. An MLB team employee asked
for her phone number, telling her that it was for another media outlet that wanted to have her
on their show. It turned out that he gave her number to a player on the team. She was
completely unaware until the player started to call her and text her constantly, asking for
inappropriate photos and to talk to him before his games. The reporter explained the
boundaries to the player multiple times, however the harassment did not stop until the player
was injured and had to leave the team.
 One reporter who worked for websites and newspapers gave a quote stating, “I've been invited
to hotel rooms while on the road more times than I can count. One agent was fixated on me
giving him a number of how many penises I had seen in locker rooms through the years and how
they compared. I eventually stopped calling him, which meant that sometimes I was unable to
get information I needed. I also recall trying to build a relationship with a team executive who I
was pretty sure was a source for other reporters. We were supposed to meet up for a drink
during a big work event, but he kept changing the subject away from work to my personal life
and whether or not I was dating anyone. When he put his hand on my back, that was my cue to
leave. I stopped trying to communicate with him, which was a professional disadvantage since
he was most likely helping my competitors.”

6. Sexual Harassment Stories and Quotes
 The author discusses a form of sexual harassment that he was told about and has
witnessed first hand, athletes flashing female reporters, males sharing inappropriate
pictures of themselves with the reporters, and “grabbers.”
 One female sport anchor said, “It doesn’t happen often, but I have had my breasts and
butt squeezed, the old ‘hand at the small my back’ that slides down and/or across, a
stolen kiss on the cheek, etc. While it all seems innocent enough, it can be really
uncomfortable, particularly the subtle touching. It makes you feel like you are not even
human but instead an object for someone else to ogle or fondle.”
 One reporter focused on the social media side of sexual harassment saying, “Lots of the
time it all starts on Twitter. I follow athletes for information, they follow me back, they
message me, continue to message me, etc. I've had a lot of good interactions on Twitter
with athletes, professional relationships, but lots take them too far. They call at 5 a.m. They
Snapchat inappropriate things. On the road, I make sure to not even make eye contact
with players or even really talk to them unless I'm doing an interview. You block everything
out or else you become a ‘whistle blower’ and no one wants to have you around.”

7. The Story That Leads to the Start of
Some Help…
 The University of Minnesota’s Athletic Director, Norwood Teague resigned due to accusations of sexual
harassment. These allegations brought out the story of Amelia Rayno, the reporter who cover’s the
University’s men's’ basketball team for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
 This story is where the author started to dig deeper and start to get answers on how to help these women and to start
to get some probable solutions to this sexual harassment problem.
 The first question the author asked was to a credible reporter, asking about taking legal action against
the ones who make the working conditions unfavorable.
 Her answer was clear and to the point, “The problem with any of those suits, and I once considered one, is that
proving it is so difficult and the repercussions in the business could be fatal. Who is going to hire a reporter who sues
her employer or a team?”
 The next question the author asked was to the president of the Association for Women in Sports Media
and ESPN news editor, Jennifer Overman, what she advise women to do in this situation.
 Her answer was, “The first and probably most important thing to do is to make your employer aware of what is going
on. Share any information you have—text messages, voicemails, emails, etc.—and keep copies for your own
records. Even if you’re not entirely sure you’re reading a situation correctly, do not wait until it escalates or becomes
a bigger problem. Do not try to handle it on your own, or ignore it, because it’s an important beat or a new job or
you don’t want to be perceived in some sort of negative way. Maintain your professionalism with all involved and
remember that harassment is never acceptable, whether this is your first job or your 10th.”
Teague
Rayno
Overman

8. …and Some Responsibility
 The author then moved onto responsibility, not Teague’s, but of the media industry itself. The
author asked Marcia L. McCormick, a law professor and director of the Wefel Center for
Employment Law at Saint Louis University, what responsibility the Star Tribune had for making sure
the workplace was safe for Rayno.
 She said, “Maintaining a workplace free from harassment on the basis of sex for both men and women is
part of that legal responsibility. The level of responsibility depends on the context in which the harassing
conduct occurs. An employer is more responsible for the conduct of its managers and supervisors. It is less
responsible for the conduct of those outside the employer’s control, like a source in the context of a
reporter.”
 McCormick also highlighted on how Rayno’s case is specifically more challenging because she
is a female in a male-dominated industry.
 She went into greater detail stating, “Reactions of some people to this story will be that the media entities
should protect female reporters in ways we don't worry about when it comes to male reporters and that
protection may take the form of not assigning them to beats that might expose them to men who might
act in sexually provocative ways. The possibility of harassment has been used to limit opportunities for
women to cover men's sports, which means fewer opportunities in general for women to be sports
reporters, or reporters of any other predominantly male field.”
McCormick

9. Sexual Harassment
 Individuals who started studying sexual
harassment from a communication
standpoint pointed out that harassment
is a declaration of power, not sexuality.
 With more research, it showed that men
and women view sexual harassment
differently due to varying experiences
involving power and fear and different
socialization relating to masculinity and
femininity.
 Clair studied the “framing devices”
women utilized in expressing their
harassment experiences.
 “Framing Devices”
 Accepting Dominant Interests
 Simple Misunderstanding
 Reification
 Trivialization
 Denotative Hesitancy
 Public/Private Expression
Public/Private Domain

10. Accepting Dominant Interests
 Sexual Harassment acknowledged, confirmed, or
rationalized as less as a critical problem than other
managerial matter.

11. Simple Misunderstanding
 Sexual Harassment acknowledged, confirmed, or
rationalized as “mere flirting.”

12. Reification
 Sexual Harassment acknowledged, confirmed, or
rationalized as “the way things are.”

13. Trivialization
 Sexual harassment acknowledged, confirmed, or
rationalized as “a harmless joke.”

14. Denotative Hesitancy
 A sexually harassing occurrence not characterized by
the term sexual harassment.

15. Public/Private Expression
Public/Private Domain
 Sexual Harassment characterized as part of a private-
rather than public-life or characterized utilizing private
styles of definition.

16. Sexual Harassment and the Article
 In the book, it said that with more research conducted, it showed that
men and women view sexual harassment differently. This is not entirely
true.
 The book is not entirely wrong with the statement, everyone is different and as it
said, it is viewed differently due to varying experiences involving power and fear
and different socialization relating to masculinity and femininity. However, this
article proves that at least one man, the author, views sexual harassment the
same as the women he interviewed. There was a part of the article that
discussed the kinds of sexual harassment he has viewed first hand. He took the
time to write the article to help the women who believe they cannot speak up.

17. Accepting Dominant Interests and Sexual
Harassment Toward Female Sports Reporters is Far
Too Common
 The first example of this within the article was the quote given by Jennifer Overman. “The first and
probably most important thing to do is to make your employer aware of what is going on. Share any
information you have—text messages, voicemails, emails, etc.—and keep copies for your own records.
Even if you’re not entirely sure you’re reading a situation correctly, do not wait until it escalates or
becomes a bigger problem. Do not try to handle it on your own, or ignore it, because it’s an important
beat or a new job or you don’t want to be perceived in some sort of negative way. Maintain your
professionalism with all involved and remember that harassment is never acceptable, whether this is
your first job or your 10th.”
 The other example I found was the quote given by Marcia L. McCormick. “Maintaining a workplace
free from harassment on the basis of sex for both men and women is part of that legal responsibility. The
level of responsibility depends on the context in which the harassing conduct occurs. An employer is
more responsible for the conduct of its managers and supervisors. It is less responsible for the conduct of
those outside the employer’s control, like a source in the context of a reporter.”
 Many employers and employees can view the concern of sexual harassment as less important as other problems
within the organization. The reason for this in the sports industry is because the female employees don’t want to be
viewed as less than men, they risk losing everything they worked for, and they risk being looked at in a negative way
if reported. These two examples show that sexual harassment is overlooked and viewed as less important, but they
also say that it shouldn’t be that way and it is the organization’s responsibility to take care of all matters.

18. Simple Misunderstanding and Sexual Harassment
Toward Female Sports Reporters is Far Too
Common
 There are many examples throughout the article of scenarios that can be categorized as simple
misunderstandings. Some of those scenarios include:
 When a player started to flirt with a reporter before games and then when on the road, he would call her
to come down to his room. After rejecting his many advances, he refused to speak to her for months.
 The quote given, , “I've been invited to hotel rooms while on the road more times than I can count. One
agent was fixated on me giving him a number of how many penises I had seen in locker rooms through
the years and how they compared. I eventually stopped calling him, which meant that sometimes I was
unable to get information I needed. I also recall trying to build a relationship with a team executive who I
was pretty sure was a source for other reporters. We were supposed to meet up for a drink during a big
work event, but he kept changing the subject away from work to my personal life and whether or not I was
dating anyone. When he put his hand on my back, that was my cue to leave. I stopped trying to
communicate with him, which was a professional disadvantage since he was most likely helping my
competitors.”
 And many other stories that include coaches, players, agents and more flirting with the female reporters.
 As stated before, the women who gave these stories and statements asked to stay anonymous
due to the repercussions that could result from them sharing. They have to act and say that this
is just harmless flirting in their workplace in order to stay secure in their field.

19. Trivialization and Sexual Harassment Toward
Female Sports Reporters is Far Too Common
 There is one specific example that I came across in the article that I did
not include in the stories before, but I will share if here because it is an
example of what exactly goes on in the sport industry that can be
categorized as just a joke and the athlete can get away with it.
 While covering a hockey practice, one television reporter had a player skate by
her to say, “Nice lip gloss, it’ll look good on my c--- tonight.”
 This anonymous reporter and many similar to her are subjected to
statements such as this and just have to take it and move on. If reported,
the athlete can say it was just an inappropriate joke and maybe get a slap
on the wrist and the reporter will get scrutinized by the team, league, and
possibly throughout the sport industry all together, being categorized as a
whistle blower.

20. Public/Private Expression-Public/Private Domain
and Sexual Harassment Toward Female Sports
Reporters is Far Too Common
 A female reporter is an easy target for this, one example that really stood
out to me was the reporter that had gone through many forms of sexual
harassment throughout her career, when the rumor about her was going
through the NHL.
 She gave a quote saying, “There was no paper trail, just my word against his,
and since I was fighting an unknown enemy, I couldn’t even defend myself.”
 This reporter was told by a player on the team, but she never was told or
found out who had spread the rumor. Not only did this player remain
private, the reporter was completely embarrassed and humiliated. She
could not defend herself, so to the sport industry, she was viewed
negatively.

21. Questions and Thoughts
 It is clear that one of the biggest problems within all of this is communication. These female
reporters do not feel like they can communicate these incidences to their employers in fear of
repercussions.
 What can sport do as an united industry to help these employees feel more comfortable to
communicate?
 Should every single team have to undergo training before each season on how they should behave?
Would this honestly even help?
 Is the problem lack of communication between the hierarchy and down the line of employees?
 This article gave the stories of female reporters in a male-dominated industry, but I wonder what
stories the male reporters can give when covering a women’s sporting event?
 As a female wanting to enter into the sports industry, it is unnerving and aggravating to know
that this is occurring.
 Will the amount of sexual harassment in the sport industry decrease by the time I enter into it?
 Is there anything I can start doing now to ensure that it does decrease?

22. References
Deitsch, Richard. "Female Reporters Share Stories of Harassment." SI.com. N.p.,
16 Aug. 2015. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.
Miller, Katherine. Organizational Communication: Approaches and Processes.
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub., 1999. Print.
McCormick. Digital image. Saint Louis University School of Law. N.p., n.d. Web.
23 Oct. 2015.
Overman. Digital image. The Association for Women in Sports Media. N.p., 6
June 2014. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.
Rayno. Digital image. Star Tribune. N.p., 11 Aug. 2015. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.
Teague. Digital image. Star Tribune. N.p., 11 Aug. 2015. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.