Activists or cowards?
That’s the question I often ask about members of the media when they go radio silent on a hot-button issue.
Do they avoid asking tough questions because they fear the answers might undermine a cause they support? Or do they stay quiet because they’re scared of the blowback they’d get from their peers?
DREAM AND VALKYRIES SKIP NATIONAL ANTHEM AGAIN IN WNBA FINALS GAME 2 DESPITE RULEBOOK REQUIREMENT
Look no further than the past two weeks, when three major stories captured public fascination while traditional newsrooms responded with either deliberate silence or toothless coverage.
Story No. 1: The WNBA’s national anthem walk-offs.
Before Games 1 and 2 of the WNBA Finals, both the Atlanta Dream and the Golden State Valkyries walked off the court before the singing of the Star Spangled Banner, only to return as soon as it was over. Yet, besides OutKick, I couldn’t find a single instance of credentialed media covering the Finals even mentioning this. The San Jose Mercury News lauded Alanis Morissette’s rendition before Game 2, but didn’t appear to care that players weren’t on the court for it. And a writer from SF Gate decried how “conservative media can’t stop complaining” about personnel deciding to leave the floor.
Sorry, but this story matters to people. And apparently, mainstream reporters have no interest in asking players or coaches about it. OutKick’s Dan Zaksheske has been ready with questions at press conferences but hasn’t been called upon. Perhaps WNBA public relations officials are concerned he’ll make the people he covers uncomfortable. They certainly don’t seem worried that the other journalists in the room will.
Story No. 2: Valkyries fans’ open hostility toward attendees wearing XX-XY shirts at Game 1.
Jennifer Sey, founder of XX-XY Athletics, posted disturbing video from Chase Center on Saturday. In it, a woman calls Sey “disgusting” and tells her to “f—ing kill yourself” for donning a shirt advocating for female-only sports. The clip got four million views on X, but virtually no mainstream media coverage — and certainly no condemnation. Yahoo! Sports ran a story that originally appeared on Basketball Network, but the author, Yakshpat Bhargava, seemed to be siding against Sey.
“What Sey should truly understand is that if her goal is to help women’s sports take the next leap forward, why ignite controversies that are already in the past?” he wrote. “At this point, all attention should be on the Valkyries and Dream’s play on the hardwood.”
No, the issue of males in female sports is not a controversy that’s in the past. It’s alive and well. Need proof? Then look at…
WOMEN’S SPORTS MEDIA OUTLET BACKS TRANS ATHLETES, THEN AVOIDS QUESTIONS FROM REPORTER WHO DISAGREES
Story No. 3: A high school cross country runner who switched from the boys to the girls team midway through the season.
I’ve been covering this one for a couple weeks now. After finishing 76th in a boys JV race in September, a sophomore boy from Camas High in Washington state decided he was going to compete against the girls. Since making the switch, he has won a varsity meet and finished second in another race. In September, two girls from Skyview High protested by walking off the start line after the gun went off, and last week, about a dozen of his own teammates did the same thing.
As you might imagine, this has gotten national attention. Several Fox News Channel shows have covered the story, as have the likes of Clay Travis and Riley Gaines. But ESPN? The Athletic? Crickets. And though papers in Washington State such as the Seattle Times have mentioned the protests, nobody in legacy media is criticizing the boy’s participation.
A couple months ago, I wrote about a new category that The Associated Press Sports Editors added to their annual writing contest: Excellence in Transgender Sports Coverage. But if you read how the category was introduced, you’d see that the only stories that have a chance at winning are hagiographies to trans athletes. There is no room for pushback — only acceptance.
I’ve said before that journalists should be judged on two criteria — what they write, and what they don’t write. And too many sports journalists have decided that certain stories are better left untold. The reason is simple — they care more about what their peers think about them than the public. And whether that’s born out of activism or cowardice, the result is the same: The public gets cheated.