EOTO #2- Reaction Post

Women in journalism: The potential never ends

As an aspiring female sports journalists, I was most intrigued with the EOTO that discussed women in journalism. I had never heard of stunt reporting or stunt girls before, which seems shameful since these women got the ball rolling for future females in this field.

For those like me who didn't know much about the start of female journalism, I'll start off with two definitions. First off, stunt reporting started in the 1880s and 1890s, where female journalists would go undercover into certain establishments and report on the experiences of being on the inside for the newspapers that they were working for. 

These women were labeled as stunt girls, even though they were investigative journalists like men. They got this title due to the societal belief that women who did this work and who were considered brave and independent were unusual and rare.

Spotlighting Nellie Bly was a great idea for this presentation because she is a very well-known stunt girl whose stories covered numerous issues that were occurring at the time. It was refreshing to see a woman creating strong works of journalism, especially with so many women getting pushed to the sideline to do "female" topics like fashion and gossip, instead of more important topics like hard news and social action. 

Bly and other stunt girls demonstrated that women could write these types of stories and showed that they had the grit and determination to tackle big issues in society through writing.

Bly, whose real name was Elizabeth Cochrane, had the urge to promote activism coursing through her veins. Her career began in 1885 after she wrote a disapproving email to the editor of the Pittsburgh Dispatch on an article called "What Girls are Good For."

She began working for this newspaper and wrote articles about Pittsburgh women's working conditions, conditions in the slums and other similar topics. One of her notable works of journalism for this paper was Six Months in Mexico where she frequently sent back reports about the condition of the poor and official corruption in Mexico.

After angering Mexican officials, she left the paper and moved on to writing for the New York World. She turned heads with her compilation of reports called Ten Days in a Mad House, which covered her time in the insane asylum on Blackwell's Island. She explained the conditions and how the patients were treated in the asylum which caused a grand-jury investigation and helped to improve patient care.

She continued to expose other institutions for their wrongdoings, but what I find most impressive is the fact that she showed zero fear when writing these kinds of articles. This kind of journalism is risky because these articles can ruin people's careers, reputations and lives. Even if the articles are factual people negatively affected will come after you.

Investigative journalists receive a lot of hate, and I'm sure it was even more difficult for women like Bly because women weren't always taken seriously when not discussing topics like fashion, makeup, celebrities and gossip. Unfortunately, this still happens, especially in sports broadcasting.

I'm working on a final paper for my sports and communication class, which discuss the inequality that female sports reporters face. Much like many women at the time were forced to cover female related topics, sports reporters have faced only being sideline reporters due to their appearance and the assumed belief that women aren't as knowledgeable about sports. 

It's disappointing and discouraging that there is little faith in female reporting across multiple genres. However, after learning about Bly in this EOTO, I hope that I can showcase that women are capable of covering sports and other hard-hitting topics in my future career.