Lapchick APSE Report Card

I can understand and agree with the importance of Lapchick’s study on the Racial and Gender Report Card for the Associated Press Sports Editors. I think that the idea of having fair and equitable media coverage is often overlooked, not only in the field of sports but all of media. It’s important that the media is as diverse as the people they cover because that way they can help relate to and may even share some of the similar experiences of the people they are covering. Diversifying the media also helps to bring the public different ideas than if people of all the same race were the only one’s involved in the media. Although the goal for the media is to cover people fairly, there will always be some bias and differences in coverage with different races.

Lapchick’s study examines and grades the Associated Press Sports Editors as far as having minority races and genders involved in the profession. As I said this study is important, mostly because it calls attention to the misrepresentations of minority races and of the female sex involved in sports coverage today. The study showed that just six percent of sports editors were minorities, similarly just six percent were women. Just eleven percent assistant sports editors were minorities. Overall the number of minorities in the sports media is very small, which resulted in poor racial and gender grades for the ASPE. I wasn’t really surprised that minorities were underrepresented in the media, but I was surprised how small the number was.

Lapchick also asks the question, “Is the coverage of athletes and sports in the media fair and
accurate when women and people of color are the subjects of the reporting?” This is an interesting and difficult question to answer. However, I would say that the answer is yes, if the media works hard to present all sides of the story equally and fairly. That being said, I still believe it is important to try to improve the gender and racial grades for the ASPE because of the different views that the public can get from different races and genders.

Another thing that I think is important, but not brought up in the study, is why the APSE is so underrepresented in minorities and females. There aren’t any explanations as to why this occurs. I think that the number of minorities and females who want to be in those positions in the APSE needs to be accounted for in the study. I think instead of just showing the percentages of people in the position, I think they need to show the percentages of people who applied for the job. If no minorities or women are applying for those jobs, then it really isn’t the APSE’s fault. Regardless of the outcome of a study that compares those percentages the APSE needs to play a more proactive role in encouraging minorities and females to become involved in the APSE, which would hopefully help make the numbers more equitable.