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Women and the Masters, here we go again

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by vivbernstein, Apr 10, 2011.

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  1. Gator

    Gator Well-Known Member

    War, huh?
     
  2. Guy_Incognito

    Guy_Incognito Well-Known Member

    I'll try. Everything else you say might be correct, but this is not the same as refusing restaurant service to an African American. The employee in that case was clearly motivated by racism. Over here, there could be a perfectly good reason to bar women from the locker room - if the athletes had an expectation that there would be no women, then there would be legitimate privacy reasons to bar women. This could be a good reason to bar male reporters from women's locker rooms too. For reasons of equity, the policy of all sports is to allow all reporters in, so the athletes have no expectation of privacy, and dress accordingly. The security guard could have been ignorant of the policy, and had perfectly fine intentions blocking the reporter's entrance. That's impossible in the restaurant example.

    Outside of that, I agree that it was their responsibility to educate their employees on the policy, my only issue is the simile.
     
  3. ShiptoShore

    ShiptoShore Member

    This.

    The female security guard probably assumed women weren't allowed in the locker room just like women aren't allowed in the men's room, because guys are standing in there with their wee-wees (yes, I said it) in their hands. Simple as that.
     
  4. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    "It's a war out there! They're out there to kill you, so I'm out there to kill them. I'm ... a soldier."
     
  5. Gator

    Gator Well-Known Member

    Women's sports journos = University of Miami tight ends.
     
  6. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

    I was banned from a women's pro basketball locker room in 1979 or 1980. We didn't write about it. Understand that I really did not want to go in there. My paper did not especially want me to go in there. But my paper did take it up privately with the team and WBL because we did not want another paper, which had women covering that beat, to have a competitive advantage. So then no reporters went into the locker room.

    I understand the issue of this weekend and the larger issue it represents, and I do not blame people for being as pissed as they want to be. Personally, though, I would be more pissed if Tara had been denied access at a Nets off-day or on deadline after a Yankees game, because in those cases they truly would be competitive situations, while at the Masters, pretty much everyone winds up using the same quotes anyway, whether they were there or not.
     
  7. BB Bobcat

    BB Bobcat Active Member

    http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2011/04/commentary.html

    Here's a good exerpt:

    I am coming around to the idea, which I believe Rick Stain wrote on this thread, that ANGC doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt, based on its history.

    Yeah, it probably was just one ignorant security guard rather than an institutional decision. But I guess I don't have a problem with slapping around ANGC for another day or two, just because of the history and overall poor behavior.

    Kinda like the trouble-making kid who always gets detention, even sometimes when he's not the one who threw the spitball.
     
  8. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    Has anyone tracked down the security guard and ask for her side of things? Like what happened? Why did you keep Tara out? What kind of training did you receive? Etc. and so forth.
     
  9. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    I would agree, except that the consensus here seems to be that it doesn't matter what the security guard's side of things was. Merely that she turned away a female journalist at the door.

    And I am NOT saying that's right or wrong. In fact, in light of 21's post, I am beginning to see things a little more clearly with this. (Although Liz Mullen's militancy kinda leaves me cold, I must say.)
     
  10. Double Down

    Double Down Well-Known Member

    I won't go over the ground that has already been covered eloquently here, but let me just briefly say that I very much hate the mentality that goes "She was given the quotes, so it's not like she was harmed" which I believe appeared earlier in this thread. Just debating the journalism of that for a second, and not the gender issue, it's totally b.s. to think that way. What if Tara had a specific question she wanted to ask McIlroy? What if she had the question that would have made McIlroy give the best answer, the one that would have then made EVERYONE'S story? Every single person who has ever covered a major event has done some form of transcript journalism. It's not fun. It's barely even real. But it happens, either because of deadlines or limitations on how many questions can be asked or because someone already asked anything you can think of. But saying it's no big deal because Plaschke was kind enough to give her the quotes doesn't make the journalism aspect of it ok.
     
  11. Mark McGwire

    Mark McGwire Member

    And to think, if I had not read this thread, I'd never have known George Wallace was governor of Mississippi and not Alabama.
     
  12. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    Posnanski on the topic ...

    http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2011/04/commentary.html
     
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