It’s a question from sport’s dark ages: can women cover a game played by men? The answer, of course, is they can, despite dinosaurs such as David Campese continuing to believe otherwise. The Wallabies legend today lambasted The Sydney Morning Herald for getting a “girl” to write about the game they play in heaven.
In a since-deleted tweet to his 8,204 followers, Campo lamented the loss of 30-year union “jornio” [sic] Greg Growden before taking a swipe at an unnamed female colleague for having “no idea about the game” (we assume it was Georgina Robinson). Twitter user @AngelaCuming managed to take a screenshot of the tweet before the ex-winger erased it:
Plenty of users took umbrage with Campo’s knock-on, which he responded variously by saying he was “joking”, “just asking the question”, and that people need to “relax and see the light side of life”.
In Crikey’s opinion, some of the best journos in sport are women. Caroline Wilson has the best AFL sources in the business, while fellow Age guns Emma Quayle and Sam Lane regularly produce cracker footy yarns (Quayle’s draft coverage has been forensic). Kelli Underwood did a terrific job as the first female football TV commentator, and continues that work on radio.
ABC Grandstand also has some excellent broadcasters in Karen Tighe, Debbie Spillane and Simone Thurtell. Fairfax’s chief cricket writer Chloe Saltau is superb, Rebecca Wilson has a well-read rugby league column in the Daily Tele and Jacquelin Magnay was a star at the SMH before being poached to cover the London Olympics for the UK Daily Telegraph. And then there are the countless female hacks who cover all codes right from the grassroots to the professional leagues.
We look forward to seeing Campo try and goose-step out of this one.
Laughable. I’ll listen to most female sports journos as you know that generally they’ll have had to work hard to get there, rather than cruising in as either some banal cheerleading hack, or on ‘ex-coach/player’ reputation (both traits at their worst in coverage around the traditional football codes – but maybe that’s just because that’s where most of the media coverage is centered).
As the Italian football coach Arrigo Sacchi said when his lack of playing history was questioned, “you don’t have to be a horse to be a jockey”.
Melanie McLaughlin from the Fox Sports A-League and English Premier League coverage is very good too.
Does anyone listen to the enema drip feed drivel from Cricket “ex pert Ex-players Ex Captains” on ch 9? No. You listen the ABC and watch the 7 second delay telecast and avoid the two century delayed commentary.
She could do no worse than some of the geese out there.