It was with considerable interest that I read Jason Bell’s weekly newsletter, Behind the Bench, on Friday.
For those who haven’t been introduced, Bell is puppeteer in the toy department at the Winnipeg Free Press and, as such, he determines which stories appear on the sports pages of the Drab Slab, and I assume that means he also has a voice in where and how the articles/briefs/pics are displayed.
There is, of course, a pecking order to follow: 1) Winnipeg Jets, 2) Winnipeg Blue Bombers, 3) curling, 4) everything else.
It’s an entirely logical priority list and it would be folly for Bell to stray too far from it, lest an angry mob bearing pitchforks and tiki lamps and waving “We (heart) True North!” and “Long Live Mike O’Shea!” placards descends upon his bunker at 1355 Mountain Ave.
“The Jets and Bombers will always get a greater preponderance of the local space on our pages. Readers demand it,” he confirmed in his newsletter. “Then, there’s the Goldeyes, Sea Bears, Valour FC and Moose coverage. And there’s also a strong appetite for stories from beyond our borders on the Blue Jays and the MLB, the Vikings and the NFL and the Raptors and the NBA.”
Fine. So where do female athletes/teams fit in?
Well, that’s precisely what one female reader wanted to know, and the Drab Slab’s track record on the female file became the focus of Bell’s latest instalment of Behind the Bench.
“The reader admitted taking only the Saturday paper, noting she is discouraged and disappointed that all she reads is an “all-MALE sports section,” Bell writes. “I didn’t think that assertion was accurate. Or particularly fair.”
Not accurate? Not fair?
Hmmm. The idiom “there are none so blind as those who will not see” comes to mind, because the Freep SE definitely isn’t seeing what I see when I call up his sports pages every morning.
What I see is a Drab Slab sports section that’s as close to “all-MALE” as the membership at Augusta National Golf Club.
I mean, I expected to read something on Canada’s most decorated professional golfer when I called up the Freep yesterday morning, but there was nary a word on Brooke Henderson’s play in the HGV Tournament of Champions. Yet, they found room for a lengthy yarn on Pascal Siakim’s “lasting impact on Toronto” and a brief on Shane Pinto signing a one-year contract with the Ottawa Senators.
In three Saturday editions this month, this is the scorecard for articles/briefs exclusive to either male or female athletes/sports: 35 male, four female (including one local). Two of the three sports sections had zero (0!) local content exclusive to females.
Meantime, here are some noteworthy findings from monitoring the Freep for its coverage exclusive to female athletes/teams in 2023:
- In May there were just four (4!) local female articles. For the entire month.
- In each of July and December there were just nine.
- In the first three months, the average for local female copy was 32; in the final nine months, it plummeted to 10.6 articles/briefs.
- More than half the sports sections the Freep put out had zero (0!) local female content.
- The male/female breakdown was 3,892 M, 696 F (192 local F).
- Curlers are by far the most covered female athletes, with 58 articles/briefs (51 in the first four months) on Pebble People. Hockey is second with 35.
- Of all articles/briefs, 4.1 per cent were exclusive to local females.
And yet Bell believes it isn’t “particularly fair” for one of his readers to point out that his paper is failing miserably on the female file?
Of course it’s fair.
Why, just last year he welcomed readers to “keep those calls, letters and emails coming—and don’t hold back with your opinions of how we’re doing in the Free Press ‘toy department’. Bring it with both barrels blazing.”
What’s truly troubling is that Bell is unable to measure the vastness of the male/female disparity on his own sports pages.
“Have I done the math on the percentage of our coverage of female sports?” he asks. “No, I haven’t.”
Hmmm. It’s kind of difficult for any among us to make a convincing argument in favor of what we’re doing when we fail, or refuse, to recognize what we aren’t doing.
“Since taking the job as sports editor, my No. 1 priority has been to increase the number of stories on female athletes and female teams, and that message has been received loud and clear—and been acted upon—by my staff,” Bell bragged.
That’s hollow jibber-jabber when he presents zero evidence in support of the notion that the Drab Slab’s record on the female file has improved substantially since April 11, 2022, when Bell became official puppeteer of the toy department. More to the point, he confessed to not knowing what share of the pie he’s giving females.
“We’re striving daily to increase female representation in our pages,” he insisted. “That has been and will be part of our mandate.”
It’s interesting to note that Bell’s predecessor in the SE’s bunker at 1355 Mountain Ave., Steve Lyons, spewed similar jibber-jabber in November 2020: “I think (local male/female coverage) all evens out in the big picture. It’s one of my mandates to try to be sure that it does.”
Again, “there are none so blind as those who will not see.”
Female athletes/teams in Good Ol’ Hometown deserve better from the broadsheet. They deserve more.
The River City Renegade 
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