politics

People wearing ranbow colored masks hold signs reading, "let kids play" and "the public says no to HB 1041"
People gather to protest Indiana HB 1041, a bill to ban transgender women and girls from participating in school sports (AP Photo/Michael Conroy).

For the first time since tennis player Renee Richards in the 1970s, transgender (trans) women athletes, including Lia Thomas and Laurel Hubbard, received major media coverage in 2021. However, these athletes weren’t spotlighted because of their athletic abilities per se, but because they became political targets caught in the crosshairs of arguments about fairness and competitive advantage in sport.

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CNN discusses Donald Trump's Impact on Journalism
Photo from CNN.com

As Donald Trump assumes his new role as President of the United States after a bitterly divisive campaign, it is increasingly relevant to examine the ways in which politics intersect with sport. While much attention has been given to the proliferation of national anthem protests by athletes and spectators, and the modest group of NBA coaches speaking out against Trump’s rhetoric, no examination of politics and sport would be complete without discussing how this intersection is brought to bear on those who report and/or comment on sporting news for a living.

Although sports journalism has long been viewed as the “toy department” of the mass media, rarely reporting on serious topics such as political corruption or healthcare reform, sports journalists play an important role in society, working to meet the demands of a seemingly insatiable appetite for sports news. In spite of this appetite, sports journalists and sports media personalities are increasingly discovering that some of their patrons don’t want the extra side of politics that sometimes comes with the sports news entrée.

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