The flaws of sports media

This was written by Sophie, one of our student interns. The opinions expressed herein do not reflect those of Civitas other than respect for the value of open dialogue.

The past four years have seen a raging debate about “fake news,” journalistic ethics, and what, if any, the difference between nonpartisan, non-biased, and objective news is. To put it lightly, the news, and by extent the journalists who write the stories, have found themselves exposed, interviewed, muckraked, and publicly discussed more than any of them would have liked. The byline suddenly became the headline and who covers what and why and when became the focus of every story told. Attention was drawn not only to the stories filling up the 24-hour news cycle, but also the stories journalists did not cover, due to their privilege or particular lens.

Sports journalists did not escape the media critique engulfing the news industry, particularly those involved with the National Hockey League. The NHL and hockey media have been widely criticized—justifiably so—for their coverage on a wide variety of topics including racism, sexism, and the rampant cultures of homophobia and domestic violence that pervade the league. Last year, in the bubble the NHL took a lot of heat for their statements on the murder of George Floyd and the lack of national anthem protests. This year, the NHL has taken a lot of heat for their lack of response to the discovery of mass graves connected to Residential Schools in Canada. The media has allowed these and similar mistakes by different teams and leagues to continue and has perpetrated the culture that allows inherent racism, sexism, and homophobia to flourish in sports.

Before diving in to critiquing the sports media, I have to own up to my own privilege and my own mistakes. To fully set the stage: I have two years of news writing experience (more if you count the minor dalliances I had in high school) and I have been the editor of the news section of the Gavel at Boston College for a semester. For a while now, I’ve been meaning to write about the ethics and inherent bias in deciding what makes the pages of a newspaper and what doesn’t. That’s for a different article, this one is about the inherent flaws of sports media.

This past semester I fulfilled a three-year goal of mine: I finally covered BC soccer during their spring campaign, making the temporary switch from news editor to sports writer for two articles. I follow baseball beat writers, hockey beat writers, hockey reformers, get regular newsletters from the Black Sportswoman—I thought I had a pretty good pulse on where sports journalists went wrong and wouldn’t make the same mistakes.

And then I went and made the same mistakes I had been so adamant to avoid.

While covering two of the spring season games, I failed to mention or note the protest four student athletes participated in. You can look at either game summary: no mention of four players kneeling during the National Anthem, just a straight forward summary of the events taking place. Nor did I volunteer to pitch the coverage as a separate article or tie it in to coverage of a student-athlete protest about racism. Instead it went uncovered, unnoticed by the student body, and I contributed to keeping the needle surrounding male sports and activism at near zero.

The majority of sports journalists have been just as egregious as I was, or worse.

A couple of examples should suffice.

Recently, the discovery of mass graves connected with residential schools in Canada made international headlines. The remains of 215 students, one as young as three years old, were found at Kamloops Indian Residential School after an investigation by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation. Conditions at the school were horrific and amounted to “cultural genocide” as the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission defined. The findings represent a preliminary report, with an updated report coming out in late June as the grounds of the school continue to be investigated.

Montréal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price’s grandmother is a survivor of the residential school system, operated for over 150 years by the Catholic Church and the Federal Government. After a Montréal win over the Toronto Maple Leafs, a reporter asked Price for his reaction to the discovery of the mass grave. Price answered saying, “I advise a lot of people to look into residential schools.”

None of Price’s white teammates were asked about their reaction to the tragedy. Price was the only player on either Canadian team to field a question about residential schools. In addition to the remarkable insensitivity of asking Price to comment, it took the NHL almost a full week to acknowledge the tragedy. A mishandling on every level from the reporter who asked the question to the NHL as a league.

Beyond asking insensitive questions, the NHL as a whole, as well as individual teams rarely, if ever, stand up to the blatant racism of their fans. Last year, NHL prospect K’Andre Miller, who was only 20 at the time, faced racial abuse during his zoom call with the New York Rangers. Someone hacked the zoom to repeatedly call Miller the n-word. Miller spent the first part of this season playing on a team with Tony DeAngelo, known Trump supporter and racist.  The NHL and New York Rangers issued a statement condemning the racist incident on the zoom call, but still allowed DeAngelo and Miller to be teammates, demonstrating how purely performative the NHL is when it comes to racism.

Having learned next to nothing from that incident, the NHL was caught unprepared when racist comments were directed at Ethan Bear following the Oilers elimination from the playoffs this year. Bear responded to the remarks by declaring, “I’m proud of where I come from. I’m proud to be from Ochapowace First Nation.”

None of Bear’s teammates would comment publicly in support of their teammate. The Oilers organization released a statement stating “These comments also fly in the face of the work the organization has done to embrace reconciliation and build a strong and positive relationship with our Indigenous community.” The NHL commented as well. Beyond those released statements, no actions were taken on the part of the league, the Oilers, or individual teammates of Bear’s.

There have been a myriad of other examples of harmful, bad, or simply negligent sports journalism. Hockey Night in Canada host Ron MacLean made a homophobic comment on air and issued a watery apology. Last year broadcaster Mike Milbury made sexist comments about women being distractions during the playoff bubble. There is the collection of coaches who have said slurs during their coaching career. Not to mention credentialing a hockey blogger who was fired from his job as a beat writer for sexual harassment. And of course, there is hockey’s longstanding love affair with Barstool, a deeply racist and misogynistic platform.

Sports journalists rarely do their homework and research players past their on-ice statistics and things that directly relate to the sport being covered. Issues like racism, sexism, or homophobia—issues that will come to the forefront during a season—are excluded from journalists’ research. Instead, it becomes the players jobs to educate, inform, and problem solve. Or, as is increasingly the case, remain silent unless the issue specifically pertains to an individual. For issues of racism it becomes BIPOC’s jobs to explain what the individual team and league is doing to combat racism. Domestic abuse allegations are ignored or underplayed, with players being able to continue playing and often having teammates offer media comments supporting them.

Journalists aren’t lazy—most of the time, but asking BIPOC players to explain and comment on racism in the league is lazy reporting. Hockey is predominately white and elite due to the cost of equipment, ice time, and off ice training. So white athletes, who have been in a hockey bubble since as early as 13, are reinforced by white, typically male, reporters who don’t find the league’s xenophobia, racism, and homophobia relevant to game day coverage. Athletes play the game, reporters cover the game, everything outside the game remains unreported on. Unless of course a racist, sexist, homophobic, or xenophobic incident happens and suddenly journalists are scrambling to figure out how to cover the event while teams scramble to figure out how to respond.

Sports media needs to grow, educate themselves, and do better. It is well past time to start asking white teammates what tangible steps they are taking to educate themselves, what action steps they are taking to support their teammates, and what action they are taking to stop racism in the league. Reporters should start crafting thought out questions pertaining to racism and homophobia and evaluating the culture of sexual misconduct that pervades the entire sports media industry. Instead of allowing the NHL to parrot overused clichés and promises about fighting racism, reporters should push for the tangible steps the League, its teams, and its players are taking.

Hockey has enjoyed its time as being performatively anti-racist and pro-LGBT+, but it is past time for that performance to turn into tangible action. Since the League has shown an unwillingness to change, it is up to the people covering the sport to demand better, more tangible change from players, teams, and management. Change can start with reporters asking the right questions, highlighting individuals making an effort, and calling out those who fail to live up to the values they proclaim. But journalists have to start asking harder questions and they have to start covering the off-ice politics as minutely as they cover the on-ice stuff.