Oral evidence: Beyond participation: Routes into sport for girls and women, HC 176

Oral evidence, 14 October 2026.

Witnesses

Flo Lloyd-Hughes, Natalie Pirks and Fiona Tomas.

Chair

Good afternoon and welcome to the Women and Equalities Committee. This is my first evidence session as Chair, so I would like to say a huge thank you to my predecessor, Sarah Owen, for her phenomenal service and fantastic leadership of this Committee. She will be missed, but I am extremely excited to be stepping into her shoes. Today we are holding a session for our inquiry on routes into non-participatory roles in sport for girls and women. In the evidence we have heard so far, we can see that women are underrepresented in those roles, face many barriers and sometimes overt discrimination. We are really looking forward to hearing from our first panel today. We will hear from Flo Lloyd-Hughes, who is a football broadcaster and founder of The Cutback; Natalie Pirks, who is a former BBC Sport correspondent; and Fiona Tomas, women’s sport reporter at the Telegraph. Thank you so much, all of you, for coming. We are really grateful to you for giving up your time, and we look forward to asking you questions this afternoon.

Rachel Taylor

Flo, what is your assessment about the accessibility of sports media roles today for young women looking to break into the profession?

Flo Lloyd-Hughes

It is very different, depending on what landscape you look at. If you look at legacy media in the broadest sense, so print and newspapers, there are no strong routes in. It is predominantly older white male terrain, and that is probably represented in press boxes and in big awards recognising and acknowledging the achievements of those in the sports press. If you were to walk into many newsrooms, you would also see that. There is that reality of numbers, but there is also a perception that impacts the wider interest in those roles. As someone who chats to young people, goes into schools, delivers workshops and talks to them about the jobs in this landscape they might be interested in, a lot is focused on content creation in the digital world and not necessarily traditional media roles. There is obviously huge opportunity in the growing digital world that we live in, in terms of how you can be part of the wider sports media conversation and get jobs that way. But when you look at traditional media, young people probably do not see it as a landscape for them anymore.

Fiona Tomas

I would very much echo what Flo has said. For women in the industry who cover women’s sport on a regular basis, they are probably mixing with press packs that are very much more gender diverse than press packs that solely cover men’s sport. It is getting harder, not just for women but for young people in general, to break into the sports media industry because of the rise of AI, and lots of people are masquerading as journalists these days but in reality they are content creators on social media.

Rachel Taylor

Natalie, do you feel that is true? Do you think it is also true in technical roles, such as camera operators or producers?

Natalie Pirks

I am obviously a lot older than Fiona and Flo, and my experience of working in sports broadcasting lasts two decades. When I started, I was very much one of one, maybe one of two, in a press box or press room. You have to be a certain type of woman to rub along with this very male press pack. Now there is a landscape, certainly in print journalism, where they are losing headcount rather than adding people, so it becomes a lot harder to break into those traditional legacy media roles. There are now a lot more women in press boxes. I will go into a press box or a press conference and there will be maybe five or six women. We all know each other. We all talk. That feels more positive. When you go to events, there are a lot more of us, and that does feel like a step forward. Equally, when it comes to what type of women are now getting those roles and what type of women are coming in, that feels like a bit of a step back because journalism itself is not quite what it was. For example, if you are a woman taking a journalism degree and you want to work in sport, the advice I would give to women now is very different from the advice I would have given a decade ago, such as getting your journalism degree, working really hard, going into a print room and doing your work experience. It is just not the same anymore; it has become better and harder at the same time.

Rachel Taylor

Do you think there has been a change with the rise in the viewing of women’s sport? Do you think that has changed the routes in for people?

Natalie Pirks

I do not work exclusively in women’s sport. You two work a bit more in that world, what do you think?

Fiona Tomas

To a certain extent, yes. There has been a small uptick in the number of women-specific roles when it comes to digital and print. I would argue that everyone talks about this broadcast boom, but there has been a print lag when it comes to the coverage of women’s sport and how much it gets these days. You can pick up any newspaper on the shelves today, flick through the back pages, and I guarantee that there are a couple of female bylines, if that. That has been the same for quite a while now.

Flo Lloyd-Hughes

I would say that, in the last four years, you have seen a huge shift. Probably before the women’s Euros in 2022, we were not at a stage where there was a national correspondent for women’s football at every single newspaper. We have now got to that stage and some newspapers even have two, so that is huge progress, but it does not necessarily filter out across the board. As Fiona mentioned, men’s Premier League football still dictates the vast majority of coverage. The Women’s Sport Trust released its most recent visibility report last week. It is constantly crunching the numbers on how much coverage women’s sport is actually getting, whether that is newspaper or viewing figures. So much of that relies on how the market is looking. Obviously, a lot of legacy media have to shift their focus to a more digital element and therefore sometimes women’s sport or more women getting into those roles might suffer. There is sometimes an unfortunate assumption that women’s sport and women working within women’s sport and media roles are the same. I will not speak for the others on the panel, but sometimes you feel like you are fighting the assumption and they often go hand in hand, but they are separate in that there are lots of women who work predominantly in the men’s game. That was the case for me, probably up until the women’s Euros, when it shifted because there was more media spend going towards women’s football. Up until then, pretty much all my work was in the men’s game.

Rachel Taylor

How important are mentors and networks within the industry for young women who are aspiring sports journalists to navigate through their careers? Do you think there are enough of them?

Natalie Pirks

They are hugely important. I belong to WIF, Women in Football, and that is an invaluable network of women. It started out as a few women in a pub who were just fed up and had a conversation; it has now grown to thousands of women who work in sport. We have to talk about the importance of male allies as well because sometimes it can perhaps come across that men are difficult, or men are the barriers. I have obviously experienced that in my 25 years, but I have also experienced brilliant male allies, men who absolutely want to make a difference. They know there is a need to employ more women and bring more women through. We have to acknowledge that as well. Going back to what you were saying, there is a saying in news: “If it bleeds, it leads”. When it comes to sport, it is Premier League football and it often leaves very little space for anything else. Women’s sport certainly gets a bit of a raw deal when it comes to coverage. Unless they are winning or doing something exceptional, it is probably not going to get on. That is the reality. When it comes to this digital space that we are now living in, if people are not clicking on it, it is perceived as people not being interested in it so it gets pushed down the agenda.

Fiona Tomas

On that point, women’s sport is now at the stage where coverage tends to spike around major events. It is true for football, rugby and cricket. It is not too dissimilar from Olympic coverage really. It is very hard to sustain a consistent cut-through during regular seasons because leagues such as the Premier League are still so dominant. Football is king, it always will be. I know from a domestic perspective at the Telegraph that we cover women’s sport on a weekly basis from the run-of-the-mill season, but it is very difficult to cut through during regular months when there is not a World Cup or Euros happening.

Chair

Flo, I was really interested in the point you made that you have to fight against this assumption, just because there is more interest in women’s sport, that it is going to mean there are more women in sports roles. I invite the panel to say something further about that. Why do you think that might be? Why would you not see an increasing number of women working in sport if there has also been that expansion of interest in women’s sport?

Flo Lloyd-Hughes

A lot of it comes down to the reality of the economy of the media landscape. Obviously, we are witnessing huge cost cutting at the BBC at present, and changes are being made in relation to that. Women’s sport, and minority sports in general, often bear the brunt of that, and that is the unfortunate reality of the ecosystem. For example, even the BBC’s coverage around the WSL has a short window of pre-match and a short window of post-match. It is not necessarily always guaranteed to be on BBC1 or BBC2, and that over time takes its toll on the number of eyeballs that are going to see it, and obviously things around the number of contracts that can be awarded to pundits to be on that coverage and so on. That is all operating within the challenges of the wider media landscape that we are seeing, and the reality is that very few major sports in this country, apart from the Premier League, have the opportunity to be as aggressive in the media market. Everyone else is fighting for eyeballs, whether that is men’s cricket or rugby, against that beast. There is not always a run-off, and that wider digital view on things means that it has, in a way, been democratised because you can jump in and tell those stories, but it has probably removed the allowance of the legacy media to do that.

Natalie Pirks

The only thing I would add is that, from my perspective as a broadcaster, I do not think you have to be a woman to cover women’s sports, and this is industry-wide; I am not speaking just as a former BBC person. Industry-wide, you would put your woman on it. It is lovely to be able to go and cover women’s sport, and I have done it my whole career and it is brilliant, but you may be slightly doing it a disservice if you do not put your sports editor on a women’s story if it is big enough. Why are you not putting a man on it as well? It does not have to be the woman you have in that day, and I have seen that happen across the industry. I would say there is that element to it as well. As much as we want women to be covering these stories, it does not have to be.

Fiona Tomas

I joined the Telegraph seven years ago, and it was a newly created role called women’s sports reporter. I was one of two. We still have two at the paper but, over time, I have morphed into all sport. While it was my big break, per se, because I came from local news, at the time it felt really novel. Having written for a national for seven years now, there is this strongly held belief that women can only cover women’s sport. They have their expertise questioned more when they are sent out to men’s sport. Obviously, there are exceptions. As Natalie touched on earlier, there are probably a handful of women who are regularly covering Premier League football, from a print perspective anyway—it is different for digital and broadcast. That has a knock-on effect further up the food chain. There are fewer women in editor roles and fewer women commissioners on sports desks. That ultimately means that, historically, fewer female issues are covered by the mainstream media. I am fortunate enough to have been mentored by some brilliant women in sports journalism such as Anna Kessel. She is always pushing the female sport science take, such as how athletic performance is impacted by the contraceptive pill or when a woman is on their period. Going back to the male allyship angle that Natalie touched on, I have been fortunate enough to have some quite eye-opening, brilliant conversations with male colleagues who want to know more about how these female-specific issues are relevant to sport. If they come to you for advice because they are a bit underconfident on how to approach these subjects, that is totally fine by me. It is not to say they can’t, but there has historically been a belief that women can only cover women’s sport and it is just not true.

Nadia Whittome

The Committee has heard previously, and from the three of you today, about how women in sports media roles are still facing gender bias, such as having their expertise and credibility questioned and undermined. We heard previously from academics at Nottingham Trent University that men are often seen as an automatic authority on sports and sports journalism, whereas women are having to prove themselves just to get a seat at the table. How far, in your experience, does gender bias shape women’s careers in sports media roles?

Flo Lloyd-Hughes

We have already spoken about some of that, especially around expertise and being pigeonholed based on your gender. For me, personally, a huge angle is around social media safety. That is something that is very much gender-specific in sport, especially football, but is also probably something that impacts a lot of minorities, whether that is people from different races or ethnicities, different religions, sexualities and anyone trans working in football especially. That is something I have experienced massively. It is obviously not something that is exclusive to sport or football, but it is something that I have experienced and is common when you have a more public-facing role within journalism. How you are treated on social media is a huge barrier to wanting to work in sport and media. Given my experiences, I am not sure what I would say to the next generation. I say to them, “You need to go in eyes wide open about the realities of existing on X, Instagram or TikTok in this society that we live in and how people are going to view your opinions on football, your analysis or anything really, because that is one of the things you have to deal with, the realities of working in this industry. From the minor things to the more extreme end of the scale, which is certainly stuff that I have experienced where you are having to get police or lawyers involved because of those experiences.” There are lots of people in our field who have experienced very similar things.

Nadia Whittome

I am very sorry that you have had those experiences. I just want to express my solidarity with you. It is absolutely disgraceful.

Natalie Pirks

I am very fortunate. I have never had anything like that because I have worked in news for the majority of my career, which meant I was not giving my opinion. I now have a podcast where I give my opinion—

Nadia Whittome

I listen to it.

Natalie Pirks

Thank you. Boy, do people like to tell me I am wrong. Even if I have expressed an opinion that is exactly the same as my male co-star, I will be told that I am the one in the wrong, especially when we did an episode on women’s football; that was enlightening! It is not something I have experienced badly. I have had all the usual misogyny but never anything like that, thankfully.

Nadia Whittome

I bet you are told you are wrong by men who never watch the women’s game and do not like the women’s game.

Natalie Pirks

Often, if I have done a live broadcast about something, someone says that it was not good or whatever. That must be what it is like to be a footballer when someone who has never played the game is telling them they are very bad at their job. I am sorry, but until you do live broadcasting to millions of people in a stadium where you cannot hear yourself think, do not come back to me.

Nadia Whittome

Yes, it is very “I would have got that penalty” kind of energy, isn’t it?

Flo Lloyd-Hughes

The fact that Natalie is saying, “the usual misogyny”, shows that we normalise it so much because we see it as part of the job. I am sure there are lots of young people who are now so exposed to some of the darker side of social media that they, too, may see it as part of the reality of existing on the internet, whatever field they are in. It is a challenge that does not necessarily have an answer, whether that is the work that Women in Football have tried to do or the Online Safety Act and things such as that. We have normalised it so much now as part of our jobs.

Nadia Whittome

Fiona, you have already spoken about this quite a bit, but is there anything you want to add?

Fiona Tomas

The reality is you need a thick skin to work in this industry and not be affected by the issues we have just talked about. I am quite fortunate, like Natalie, not to have experienced the scale of abuse that Flo referred to. Unfortunately, it is symptomatic of the world we live in. In terms of young people trying to break into this industry, as we have already touched on, it is unfortunately shrinking. Jobs are being cut left, right and centre. It puts pressure on you to push your own brand as a journalist. The role of a traditional print journalist has had to change so much to adapt to the boom in social media. An upside from a women’s sport coverage perspective, to counter all this negative chat, is the fact that we are seeing a lot more athlete-led storytelling, which has been crucial to the rise in women’s sport coverage. The bottom line is you need a thick skin.

Nadia Whittome

In your experience, are there differences between the culture in sports journalism and other areas of journalism?

Fiona Tomas

I have only ever worked in sports, but we know that women are terribly underrepresented across the journalism sector as a whole. The figure from the most recent research is that women account for something like 10% of all print sports journalists, which is still really woeful. With regard to things such as workplace culture, I have been in media suites where—I am sure you guys have as well—you are the only woman. It happened to me earlier this year when I walked in and there was a hospitality angel working at this particular stadium. She had locked the ladies’ toilet. She said, “I have locked it for you because the men use it.” When she first came up to me, and she still works at the same ground, I did not question it at the time because I was young, eager, starting out, and wanting to make an impression and not cause a fuss. The fact that it is still happening, I am starting to question it because I am older and more experienced. I would not expect to walk into the Telegraph and the men be using the women’s toilets, for example, so why should it happen in other areas of work such as media suites and things like that? That example is probably the tip of the iceberg. I am sure that, if you spoke to many women across the industry, especially those who cover solely very male-dominated sports such as F1 or the Premier League, they would have much worse stories to tell. It is just an example of how woefully women are underrepresented in sports print journalism.

Flo Lloyd-Hughes

We touched on it earlier but, when thinking about the gender diversity of sports press rooms, we have got to a positive place, but we need to make sure that we do not risk othering women’s sport and women who work in sport. We have created a platform for a lot more women to work in the industry by crafting more roles for women’s sport coverage. For example, if I go to a women’s game, the vast majority in the press box will be women. It will be a very white press box, and that is a huge challenge for the media industry moving forward. It is probably 60:40 women, maybe even more, which is great, but there is a risk of continuing to other that so more women get pushed into it. More women go into those opportunities, and that makes the men’s side of sport even more male-heavy. That would be one to consider: making sure that there is not a lack of opportunity for women because they continue to be pushed elsewhere.

Christine Jardine

I used to be a journalist and, as part of my career, I did sport at a time when there were almost no women, and there was no coverage of women’s sports, full stop, other than golf and curling. I wondered from what you are saying about women being pushed into covering women’s sports, at the time when women started to break through there was a kind of “We have to do this” attitude in broadcasting. Does that still persist? Is there still a resistance to the sort of developments we want to see, with women having access to all areas in their careers and being able to progress? Do you find there is still an underlying almost resentment sometimes?

Flo Lloyd-Hughes

Do you mean resentment among women who only—

Christine Jardine

Not among the women, but towards the women who are coming through?

Natalie Pirks

I have seen examples across the broadcast industry of, “We have one, so we do not need any more because we have ticked that box.” I genuinely feel, particularly in newsrooms that I have worked in, there is a real desire to bring more women through and to give them opportunities. I still hear too often of WhatsApp groups that the men are in, or the golf days they take to have conversations that women are just naturally excluded from, decisions that are being made by very senior men that affect women’s careers. As a slightly older broadcaster now, we could all probably sit here and name the women who are prominent in sports broadcasting and are 50 or over. We could do it on one hand. I feel that that is a problem because, while the pathways need to be good, there needs to be a world where you do not reach 45 and feel like your career is over. I do not think that has got much better. In the digital world that we are now living in, and with that push for new talent coming through, it is almost like one in, one out. We probably need to be much better as an industry at looking after women who reach a certain age and want to stay. A lot of friends that I have, and we talk about this a lot, are going freelance or becoming self-employed, like I have just recently done, because they want a better work-life balance, they want to be with their children, but they also feel their career has reached a natural stop and they cannot really see what that next bit is. We are not particularly good as an industry at doing that either.

Flo Lloyd-Hughes

To follow up on what Natalie said, that was very much at the forefront when I started my media business two years ago. I wanted to create more coverage opportunities for women’s football, but I also realised, as a woman working in broadcasting, you age out very quickly. There is always a younger, fresher, more interesting person behind you. It is the same for much of the media industry, TV and film. That is the way of the visual landscape. I was very conscious of how I pivot ahead of time, because the reality is that very few people in broadcasting are going to be working even in their mid-40s. That is a pretty scary reality when most of us are going to have to work until our 70s. It is a challenge for that more public-facing broadcast side for sure.

Natalie Pirks

If we have worked really hard as an industry to bring these women through, train them and get them to a point where they are actually very good at their job and then watch them walk out the door, what was it for? What were all those years for if we are letting women walk away?

Fiona Tomas

Natalie will be able to speak more on this point, but I have certainly witnessed from older colleagues in the industry how hard it is to get back into the game once you have kids as a woman. I have seen women editors have to rush out of a news conference because they have to do the school run, and feeling really guilty about it. As a young woman looking up to these women, it makes me wonder what it is going to look like for me in five or 10 years’ time. There is a lot of travel involved in doing this job; you are required to cover events, sometimes many miles away from home, and have extended periods away. We know that, as a society, most of the caregiving roles still fall on women’s shoulders. It is just not the same for men in the industry who become fathers. They take their paternity leave, and then they just waltz back in. I am not saying it is not challenging for them, but I do not think it is the same for women.

Flo Lloyd-Hughes

I had a friend who recently went up for a role and there was an assumption that, because she is a parent, she would not be up for it because of the travel. Even then there is an assumption about your limitations before you get started.

Richard Quigley

Something struck me in what you said, Natalie, about the usual misogyny. That sent a bit of a chill. As politicians, we get lots of abuse, but I know Nadia will get more abuse because she is a woman. It is just not acceptable anywhere in society to say “usual misogyny”, is it? Something you did say, which my wife and children will be cheering at home, is that men are difficult and get in the way. I can only agree with that, and they will be really glad you pointed it out. On employment conditions in your industry, do you think the provision, or lack thereof, of things such as job security, flexibility, maternity pay—all the things you expect in a normal job—is preventing women from entering?

Natalie Pirks

I was hugely fortunate in that, when I had my two daughters, I was working at ITV/ITN and the BBC, both of whom looked after me very well. Both gave me the exact maternity leave I wanted and supported me. I went straight back into my role and had no issues. If I was about to embark on my journey as a mother now, I do not know—again not about those individual newsrooms but industry-wide—that I would feel as comfortable or as confident. If I was freelance, I would be incredibly worried. Fiona is absolutely spot on. I actually planned both my pregnancies around the Olympics, which is how ridiculous my life was.

Richard Quigley

Well done. That is quite an achievement.

Natalie Pirks

Someone told me it was really bad timing, and I actually said, “It is a feat of human engineering, actually.”

Richard Quigley

I bet it was a bloke who said that.

Natalie Pirks

It was a man, funnily enough. With my first, I took only six months because I needed to be back for London; you cannot miss the London Olympics. It was not enough, and it broke my heart. The second time I took nine and a half months, and the first thing I did was fly to Rio and present the 1 o’clock news for 15 minutes with no autocue and no monitor. I was so scared, and someone remarked to me afterwards, “You should probably smile more.” [Laughter.]

Richard Quigley

That is not funny. It was a laugh of desperation.

Natalie Pirks

They are a dear friend of mine, but again it was a man. It was a different time, but my point is that, when you talk about the usual misogyny, it is so much water off a duck’s back now that it is something we just deal with. I did a story about sexism in sport where this very prominent woman in her sport was being chanted at regularly. Every time she went to a football match, she was getting awful sexist abuse. When I had this conversation internally, a woman said to me, “Well, I go to football every week and you just hear that all the time. What is the issue?” We are so used to it that it has become a bit normalised.

Flo Lloyd-Hughes

There is a certain resilience that you build up, so you are probably desensitised to certain things, normalising the misogyny and what you experience because it becomes so regular and common. As a freelancer and being self-employed, you do not have any of that security. That is something I think about a lot. If I were to experience long-term sickness, I have no security, no maternity leave. If I do not work, I do not make any money. The vast majority who work in sports and the media industry are freelancers.

Richard Quigley

I am doing some work on the creative industries. What you find happening is that the people entering the creative industry are the ones whose parents can pay for them to do it, and there is a danger that you are not being rewarded for your specialism or ability to be a journalist; you are being rewarded because your parents can afford to pay. It is a bit of a concern that an industry is disappearing in that way. Q176 Staying on self-employment and freelancing, is it harder for women than it would be for your male counterparts? You will know the answer to that; I am not trying to lead the question. If so, in what ways is it harder to stay in the industry if you are freelance and self-employed?

Flo Lloyd-Hughes

It is certainly harder when it comes to maternity, because you have to make those decisions. I have heard very similar stories to Natalie’s in terms of people who rush to get back to work because they are worried that, if they do not turn up, someone else will take their place. It is probably very similar to how a player feels when they get injured; if they do not come back, they are not going to get back in the squad or get their place on the pitch. That is certainly the reality of being self-employed. It is very different if you are a father or a mother, because it is that physical impact that you have as a parent. As Fiona said, the woman is more often than not the main caregiver in the family. That is a big element of it. Some places are really supportive and others are not. Because there are so few jobs now, it increases that competition, uncertainty and insecurity about your place. Social media has added to that too because, as someone who is freelance, the comparison culture is always there because you are saying, “Oh that person is doing this, and this person is doing that. I need to make sure I say yes to this, otherwise I will not get it.” There is a constant cycle of things playing on your mind.

Richard Quigley

On that point, as we move towards digital media and the way we all consume news in whatever form, has that widened or narrowed the opportunity for women in sports journalism?

Fiona Tomas

It has widened opportunities for fans and those who consume women’s sport, because we know that the fandom in women’s sport is very different from fandom in men’s sport. A prime example being it is very niche and you do not read a lot about it in newspapers, because predominantly male desks will not commission it. It is very unlikely, because men have never played it, that they have ever been to a netball match or know much about the sport itself. I know for a fact that Sky has broadcast netball for the past two decades and has blown up its YouTube channel, which has the largest female audience across all the sports that it shows. It has noticed that women will not necessarily watch the sporting event live, but they will come back to it because they have other commitments, whether that is putting a kid to bed or whatever it might be. The boom in social and digital has definitely led to an uptick in the cut-through when it comes to women’s sport reaching more people. People are engaging with it more. The counter to that is that they are scrutinised more, they receive more abuse, more pile-ons, those sorts of things.

Chair

I will try to finish this session in about 15 minutes, so if Kim and Rosie could try to keep their sections within that, it would be great.

Kim Leadbeater

Thank you for giving such honest and open evidence. We could probably have pretty much the same conversation about women in politics, women in sport and women in broadcasting, and I think it is really fascinating. You have three areas there where we probably have a lot of shared experiences, shall we say? Diving into that a little further, how significant a factor would you say online abuse is in shaping women’s experience of your profession at the moment?

Natalie Pirks

If I was starting out and seeing the level of abuse that future me would get, it would not make me want to do it as a job. I cannot say I want my children to become camera-facing journalists, if I am honest, because it is not particularly nice. When I started out, my role models were women like Clare Balding, Gabby Logan and, lastly, the brilliant Kelly Cates, obviously. They are all still brilliant at their jobs today, but we did not have social media then, so I could not see what anyone thought of Clare two minutes after she came off her Wimbledon broadcast because it did not exist. People coming into this industry now are living in a very different landscape from the one I came into. I came into one without too many women but with brilliant role models. I was very much on my own in press boxes and having to learn to rub along with men and get their help. I am forever grateful to the men in those press boxes who really helped me in my early career, but now, if I could go back and see the abuse that women get, I feel it would be a barrier. I am not sure I would want to do it as much as I did when I started out. How about you guys?

Fiona Tomas

I would probably say I encounter it less than the two women either side of me, and that is purely because I work in print journalism. That said, it is so energy-sapping to scroll through the comment section, which I have now stopped doing because of the amount of misogyny. It is like a cesspit of misogyny most times. Before we came into the room, Flo and I were saying that, in this day and age, journalists have no choice but to push themselves on social media to foster their brand. We would not necessarily have it if we were not doing this job, because of all the stuff you have to put up with in this day and age. It is just the modern world, isn’t it?

Flo Lloyd-Hughes

Yes, I would echo what Fiona and Natalie have said. If I was having a conversation with a young person, I would probably have to be quite frank and say, “Consider what you might be experiencing if you put yourself into a public-facing role, and maybe do something where you blend more into the background. You do not have to put yourself in such an exposing position.” That might be the way to go, because you have to be willing to take so much and it takes its toll.

Kim Leadbeater

It is so depressing, isn’t it? We have the same in our jobs. I have just shown a bunch of schoolchildren around Parliament, and you want to say to those young girls and women, “Get involved. We need good women in public life,” and actually it is a hard sell. It is challenging. Do you think, for people who are currently working in the industry, there is an element of self-censorship? You do not say things that you might want to say because you are worried that there might be consequences? The Committee has had evidence that that can be the case. Are there any experiences that you personally, or maybe other people, have had of that?

Flo Lloyd-Hughes

I would say 100%. In the early days of Twitter, I would be far more likely to share my opinion on things. After what I experienced over a number of years, I completely changed the way I use any social media. I restricted and altered my privacy settings entirely. I reveal hardly anything of my opinion, of myself, on there, and it is purely self-promotion in a very basic way. That is the only reason to be on there. If I did not need to be on there, pushing articles and trying to grow a business, I would absolutely not be on there. Unfortunately, in my line of work, I have to be on there. I would not be if I did not have to be for my work.

Kim Leadbeater

Interestingly, it does not feel like freedom of speech, does it?

Fiona Tomas

Yes, I can totally relate to what Flo is saying in the sense that, the longer I have been in this industry, the more about my personal life that I do not want to put on social media. I am purely on it for professional purposes. That is increasingly common, to be fair, across the industry because your profile is everywhere these days. People can just look you up, know where you live and, as a woman, it can be quite scary if you reveal too much about yourself. I am fortunate in that I have not had anything as drastic as Flo.

Kim Leadbeater

Natalie, have you said, “I had better not say that. I had better not give my opinion on that?”

Natalie Pirks

Yes, 100%. Anyone who knows me knows I am quite opinionated on lots of things but there is just no point. What is the point? Once you put it out there, it is out there. It is just not worth it. Then it just consumes you. You are knee-deep in the comment section or something, and it is just not good for your mental health. I reached my 40s and just went, “I am not doing this anymore.”

Kim Leadbeater

Following on from what Richard was asking, given that that is the landscape you are all working in, what more can employers do to try to support you and help with that? Flo, as a freelancer, you do not have the support that you would hopefully get from an employer, so what does that look like? What do you think employers could do to address those issues a bit more?

Natalie Pirks

I do not know because I am freelance now, but I was protected to a degree. Nothing happened to me that was ever anything that required the BBC or ITV to jump in and protect me in any way, so I cannot really speak to it as much. Maybe Flo can.

Flo Lloyd-Hughes

I would say be mindful when working with anything that is going out publicly; be in conversation with the people you are working with about the clips you are posting. For example, there was one particular broadcaster I used to work with and I just had to say, “Please do not tag me in anything, because if you tag me in something, these are the consequences.” So make sure you work alongside someone so that you can protect them as well. If you are looking at a segment and think, “This 20 seconds is going to go so well that we should pump it out,” be mindful of the person and of the impact of the clip out of context, not just because you think it is going to be great engagement for the website, or the broadcaster, whoever it may be. Keeping the person front of mind rather than the engagement and the reach of said clip is really important. I have had lots of support from people I have worked with and people in the game. I know managers who have been really supportive when I have experienced things, which is great. They go through it as well, because that is the reality of social media now. It is just making sure that you support people and protect them from certain things.

Rosie Duffield

Everything you said in that answer totally resonates with us all as politicians. We have been told that women’s sport currently occupies less than 10% of annual TV and print sports coverage. That is quite a shock, isn’t it? Less than 10%. What is your view of that percentage relative to the demand? We know about those figures in netball and the women’s World Cup; it does not seem to tally with how much coverage it gets.

Fiona Tomas

It is woefully low when you hear it out loud, isn’t it? That is the highest it has ever been. I would argue that 10 or 15 years ago it would have been as low as 2%. We have already touched on it before: it has not necessarily tallied with a rise in the number of sports writing roles for women. They have very much stayed the same. We are talking about women’s football specialists. We have one, and I know the Mail has one. The Guardian has two. Women’s football is probably leading the way on that front. In print, it is difficult. During major events, when interest levels spike, that is when you tend to see female athletes on the front pages, actually being front-page news. During the regular season, it is very hard to come by unless a massive story breaks or you are fortunate enough as a print journalist to land a big exclusive that is agenda-setting and so on. It goes back to the reality that a lot of people on sports desks are male. There are not a lot of women in editorial roles. There are not a lot of women who are at the decision table, per se. Although it has got better, the quality of women’s sport coverage has grown significantly over the past five to eight years. We are seeing lots of long-read interviews. We are seeing a lot more analysis, which 10 to 15 years ago would be very sketchy, very few and far between. That is the ongoing challenge. Female athletes want to be taken seriously. It is their profession. They want to be critiqued from a performance perspective. There has been a big push on that front, but there is still a lot of work to be done. It goes without saying that the column inches are very firmly rooted in men’s sport.

Rosie Duffield

I want to move on to Flo, because Fiona just touched on analysis. That is the other thing, isn’t it? It is not just coverage; it is, “Let’s discuss this and get really down into it.” Flo, you have previously commented on the lack of quality in-depth analysis. What do you think are the challenges that still remain? You mentioned the economic landscape and that women’s sport is still seen as a minority interest, which seems crazy because we are the majority of the population. Do you think that plays a huge part?

Flo Lloyd-Hughes

The opportunity is with digital media. That is something I am really focused on. We spoke about content creators and how they are coming into the landscape. The digital approach of legacy media, or the digital approach of new media in general, can put a spotlight on women’s sport. That is really important because some traditional media are constantly going through the same motions and cycles. They will still focus on the top six teams of the Premier League and, for example, not necessarily even EFL. We are going to go through those same patterns, and that rarely changes, but the rise of digital new media allows people to create it for themselves. It is certainly something I am trying to do. Having worked in many sports environments, it is a frustration that you are just telling the same story about the same England player or the lack of women’s FA Cup prize money, which is an important story to be told but you cannot be saying the same thing every season. The good thing is there are people like myself and others who are trying to challenge that, or trying to say, “Look, can we actually write about what is happening on the pitch for once?” That will continue to happen within traditional media landscapes too, because people are fighting for that, but there is more of a new and digital media push to make that happen.

Rosie Duffield

Natalie, do you think you are able to go more into that area now that you are freelance? Does it free you up to concentrate on analysis, if that is what you would like to do?

Natalie Pirks

It probably frees me up to have an opinion. I have not been able to have that my whole career, and I can now. Whether I want to, because of all the things we have already said, is the big question. It goes back to what I was saying earlier: if it bleeds, it leads in news. In the digital world, if you are getting clicks, they will push it higher. So if they can see that people are reading it, they will push it higher. If the Premier League or England are playing, men’s football will just dominate. So women’s sport just gets pushed down and it becomes, “What is the story?” If the Lionesses are winning, or if they are now in the play-off final, that is a story, but it will be jumped by what Lisandro Martinez said last night because that is men’s football. It is almost a hierarchy, and I am just not sure it will change, unless you are in the middle of a women’s World Cup or Euros and they happen to do quite well. I have been in situations where I have covered women’s finals and it has been dropped from the broadcast because they lost. That was only a decade ago; we are not talking about 50 years. We are much better, but women still need to do something exceptional. They have to be winning, there has to be a story and there has to be something for journalists to get stuck into. It cannot just be they have done this thing. It has to be exceptional.

Chair

You have all given extremely powerful and helpful evidence this afternoon. Thank you very much. Although it is very depressing, a consistent theme from this inquiry is the sense that women in sport have to be exceptional. It has come across again today that you need a thick skin to succeed. It is really tough to hear. In the last minute, I am going to ask a hard question. What is the one thing that you think would be most helpful now to a young woman starting out and trying to have a career in sports journalism? What is the most useful thing that you would like a young woman to have for a good career in general sports journalism? I told you it was a hard question.

Flo Lloyd-Hughes

Recognition. It is something we talk about a lot in our industry because women are rarely recognised for their achievements in industry awards or elsewhere and beyond. A way that recognises women, to keep them coming back. If you feel you are respected by your peers, you are doing good work, you feel like you are doing impactful work that is making a difference and your audience appreciates it, that stuff keeps you going. This industry probably grinds people out because they rarely see that recognition.

Fiona Tomas

That is a good one, because we can all relate to the number of women who are shortlisted for sports journalism awards. I would say, “Do not let your gender hold you back.” I know it is easier said than done, but if you want to paint your nails pink and walk into a room full of men and ask questions that truly matter, which can be hard especially when they are relevant to female athletes, do not shy away from doing that. When you ask those sorts of questions of people, you automatically pull the wool from their eyes, often male eyes, and you open the door to a completely different avenue that they might not have explored or thought of. Yes, just be you and, although it is tough, just tough it out.

Natalie Pirks

I would just say it is not an industry for the meek, but it has got better. I know we have spent the last hour saying that it has not, but it has. I have had entire away ends chant sexual obscenities at me live on air, which does not happen now. It is much better. There are more of us. We all know each other, we all talk, we all have each other’s backs. It is getting much better, but do not come in expecting it to be easy.

Chair

Thank you very much. Thank you, all three of you, for coming this afternoon and for your fantastic evidence. Examination of witnesses

Witnesses

Ashley Broadley, Leon Mann and Barbara Slater.

Chair

Hello, and welcome to our second panel this afternoon. Thank you so much to all three of you for joining us. I hope you enjoyed listening to the first panel; I thought it was really interesting and gave a good flavour of the topics we want to discuss this afternoon. For our second panel, we are really pleased to hear from Ashley Broadley, chair of the Sports Journalists’ Association; Leon Mann, founder of the Black Collective of Media in Sport; and Barbara Slater, former director of BBC Sports. It is a fantastic panel and I am really looking forward to hearing from you all. Thank you for giving up your time. I will hand over first to Richard, please.

Richard Quigley

In your assessment of accessibility to sports media for young women looking to get into the profession, how would you measure it? How successful or otherwise would you say it is?

Ashley Broadley

I wear a second hat as head of sport at the Press Association, the national news agency, so I am looking at it from two different perspectives. From an SJA point of view, we measure it through our shortlists, the people who apply for awards. We want to celebrate journalism through our flagship SJA awards ceremony. We look at how many young people and how many women are entering. It is something we have looked at closely over the last few years and, as mentioned previously, that recognition is very important. That is the type of data we have around it.

Richard Quigley

Would you say it is harder for young women to break into the industry? Are the measures saying otherwise and we are all wasting our time here, or what does it look like?

Ashley Broadley

Interestingly, at the moment we have a job advertised at PA for a Premier League football reporter in London. It sounds, and will be, really exciting, and it will be covering a bit of England cricket at Lord's and the Oval. I have just had some information this morning: we have had 170 applicants so far, and only 19 were women. As a starting point, that is just over 10%. That 10% to 12% seems to be the figure we keep hearing. We have to look at why women are not applying for these sports journalist roles. I did some work a few years ago where I spoke to our recruitment department; we tailored the language of the advert specifically and got Women in Football to retweet it. We got the same result: out of 200 applicants, only 20 were women. There is something fundamentally wrong when women do not feel comfortable applying for those roles, but I do not know the answer to that.

Richard Quigley

Barbara and Leon, feel free to add anything to what Ashley said.

Barbara Slater

I would echo what Ashley has said. The issue is almost about where you are recruiting from. The recruitment pool acts as a kind of filter that makes it more difficult for women. If you are looking to appoint a journalist, more often than not, you are looking for people with experience. Where are you going to look for those experienced people? It might be a local newspaper or print media, for example. It is almost systemic, right the way through the system. Therefore, the lack of women in higher-profile roles is a consequence, if you like, of what is happening lower down.

Leon Mann

Yes, it is an interesting question and one that, as an industry, we should be able to answer fairly easily. Anecdotally, looking around our industry, we can say there is an underrepresentation of women. However, I am incredibly disappointed that we do not have any data points to look at. Even the three of us here can refer to different data points, but it is not actually an industry-wide picture. How do you go about trying to solve a problem without understanding where it is? At BCOMS, the Black Collective of Media in Sport, we started as a group of black men. Then my wife told me off and pointed out that, actually, there are black women as well. We quickly made a change to our terms to ensure we were relevant and effective for our industry. We are a black-led group, but we have done a series of conferences called “The D Word”. In fact, two weeks ago we held our sixth D Word conference at the Premier League’s headquarters. We hold them every two years, essentially as a bit of a head count of the diversity we can see. But measuring diversity by what we can see is very dangerous. For example, my daughters are of mixed heritage. One has blonde hair and blue eyes, so she would not count, whereas my other daughter would. They should both be part of a head count of women of colour within a data point. The fact that we do not have this data is a real problem. At every single D Word conference, we have asked industry leaders to come together and put together some research. What we are talking about here is just what we can see. We can see reporters, we can look at a byline in a newspaper and we can look at who is on social media, but you cannot actually see the majority of our industry. If I was to walk through the production management side of broadcast, it would be majority women. That is an interesting dynamic. Why is it that women are arranging and doing the operational and structural things? If you were to walk through the editorial side, the filmmakers, it is mainly men. That has been my experience of different places. It is mainly men, I would say. Barbara, I would love you to challenge me on this, because I want us to have the data to be able to back it up. Based on my experience on the shop floor, I saw an underrepresentation of women in particular areas, and an underrepresentation of men in others. But we do not have the data; this is all finger-in-the-air stuff. That is not how you solve a serious problem. We need to come together as an industry and, dare I say it, put a little money aside, maybe get some support from Government and say this is something we need to look at. Maybe work with universities on who is coming out of there—although it is not the only pathway, it is a significant one. We know from university research that people are coming out, waving their qualification in the air and do not have the networks or the soft skills required to get into the industry. There are loads of opportunities but, to answer your question directly, yes, it is much harder for women.

Barbara Slater

There is a degree of tracking it in the legacy media. We are seeing such fundamental shifts in this industry. They are huge. Actually, once you are looking at social media and the digital world, it is very difficult to make those assessments because so much of it is not just about pure journalism skills. We have heard it mentioned before: it is about content creation and influencers. I would almost describe them as subject matter experts. It might be an athlete who now creates their own channel or network. On the one hand, we are seeing a shrinking of opportunities, particularly in traditional media. On the other, we are seeing an explosion of opportunities elsewhere. If we want to address some of these issues, it is really important that we look at where the future opportunities are coming from. My perspective is possibly slightly more broadcast focused rather than journalism. Some of the progress we have seen with women has been based on their success as athletes. We are seeing new roles being created for people who have credibility in the eyes of the audience; the audience want to engage with them and want to follow what they have to say. Just look at the explosion in podcasts. Who is succeeding, and who is not succeeding, in the podcast world? More often than not, it is people with a reputation, credibility and expertise. How do we ensure that women are getting those opportunities? I would say the investment made on the field of play has been really important in allowing women to be credible in sport. I do not think it was that long ago when they were not. Look at 2012 and the extraordinary success that year. Look at our women footballers, our women rugby players, our women cricketers; they are in the first battalion, so to speak, of winning a mindset change about the value of women’s sport, its importance and the enjoyment a fan can get from it. What we have to hope is that, over time, those role models who might be on the field of play will translate to an industry that is more welcoming and accepting of women. I am sitting with two men, so I cannot say they have experienced it, but the truth is that when I was a junior, I would be in a room and was just a non-person. Why would anybody care about my opinion? I was just a woman. That is fundamentally changing.

Richard Quigley

That is a really good point. I have a two-part question. First, what more can Government do to encourage more women into non-playing sports roles? Secondly, connected to that, although it might sound unconnected, what about apprenticeships? Are they accessible, and are they a good thing in your industry?

Leon Mann

I want to address the tracking point very briefly. Sky is not talking to TNT, and TNT is not talking to the BBC. There is no overall industry tracking.

Barbara Slater

That is very fair. Individually there may be, but no.

Leon Mann

I am sure the BBC knows exactly what its stats are, but it is not being shared with BCOMS, though we have not asked directly and maybe we should. We would love to know what it looks like behind the scenes at Sky Sports. We would love to know what it looks like behind the scenes across the print media—our stats show it does not look great. Let us find out what the picture is. We know it is not going to be a good news story, which is fine. Let us crack on with what we are actually going to do and form a plan from there. In terms of things BCOMS has done, we recognise that pathways into the industry are incredibly hard. People are submitting an application and getting a “Sorry, unsuccessful” response. What I have discovered through my career is that this is actually a contacts business. This is about who you know, them understanding who you are, and then understanding where the opportunities are. We have put together what we call our BCOMS Academy. It has 25 young people in the north and 25 young people in the south. Across the year, they go into different places such as the BBC, ITV, TNT, Sky, News UK and so on, and they will do masterclasses. This helps them to understand the environment, but it also allows the industry to see these young people. We are really proud that as a result of these masterclasses, in the south we have had a 100% success rate of all 25 young people going into paid work. We are really, really proud of that. In the north, it is 70%. Again, it goes to show what can happen when you are really intentional, have a plan and give people an opportunity. This is about opportunity. The talent is there, but when talent does not have opportunity, it just drifts away and people end up working in different areas of the industry. I can only really talk to the work I have been involved in helping to deliver. There are people working for BCOMS who deliver this and are specialists in working with younger people. They are not journalists. They are working with and organising young people to get them into places. The industry has been incredibly positive and engaged with this. In the north, it is the BBC specifically that supports that. In the south, we have some commercial funding from Nike to be able to do things. We want to scale up this work. Journalists are not necessarily good at getting funding—it is not our skillset—but there are things that can potentially be done if there is a unified approach to these problems. Anticipating the question, the ambition for these masterclasses is always to have a 50:50 gender split. I would say we are close to that, but we have not quite achieved it just yet. We are probably tracking at around 40% at the moment, which is not good enough. If we are going to hold the industry to account, we have to hold ourselves to account as part of that.

Richard Quigley

It is interesting that you say it is tracking at 40%, which is great; that is four times the average we are hearing in the industry. What is stopping the other 10%? There is obviously something fundamental out there that is stopping it from happening. Just in terms of apprenticeships and access, one way or another, are you saying that if you are targeted, focused, supported, you are in?

Leon Mann

Quite simply, it is having a plan. If we were sitting here wanting to make more money, we would all have a plan, right? We would have things that we measure and things that we do. People would be held accountable and, if someone did not do their job properly, they might get sacked. With this it is just a chip shop approach: rely on an individual who might give a monkey’s, put all the pressure on them, pat them on the back and see where it ends up. There is no industry-wide approach here.

Richard Quigley

Fair enough. Barbara or Ashley, do you have anything to add in terms of what the Government could do to encourage more women into non-playing roles?

Barbara Slater

Again, I would highlight the importance of role models. It is worth mentioning that when I was at the BBC—I have obviously left, so I am not speaking for the BBC—we reached 40% in our department, because there was a plan. I totally agree with Leon: there was not a plan across the industry, and that is very different. Actually, it can be very powerful when you work together. I remember conversations we had with Channel 4 when it was doing the Paralympics. It brought a lot of disabled athletes into its team, and we did not want them to disappear. We tried to find ways to identify where there were other opportunities across the industry. Collaboration is key. The legacy media is shrinking. It could do a lot more, but in the end, there is a bit of a free-for-all going on. It is about how we can support people more within that space, because that is probably where the opportunities are for the future, and that is where we may achieve a greater equality in the longer term. Richard, I think you asked if this was something we have to do. I would personally very much dispute that; it was seen as incredibly important in terms of having that relationship with your audience. I am not trying to get the legacy media off the hook by any means; it is not perfect, far from it. I worry more around where the future opportunities are coming from and, in many ways, a broader mindset.

Ashley Broadley

Very briefly, going back to the stats again, I suppose SJA is in a unique position in that we have a wide range of membership. We have close to 1,000 members, and around 12% of those are women. Again, that 10% to 12% figure. Interestingly, we also have an SJA Academy, which has around 500 members, where we help and support young people trying to get into the industry. The percentage of women is about 25% to 30%. There is obviously something happening between people being interested in getting into the industry and then eventually getting into the industry. That is just going back to the stats.

Barbara Slater

That is where the role models are really important. When we have fantastic role models—Natalie mentioned them earlier, with Clare Balding, Gabby Logan and Kelly Cates—it shows young women that this is an industry that actually can welcome them. There may be a big time lag, but it is absolutely crucial that we celebrate these fantastic women broadcasters who I am sure have overcome huge challenges in getting to their positions. That opens the door and allows people to see themselves in those roles, making them feel that this is something they can do.

Ashley Broadley

That is where the SJA has a role to play, because we recognise the incredible work that journalists do. However, the shortlists do not reflect that because there are no women on them. We had an internal review of this in 2023, which I am happy to share with you. It came up with some recommendations about how we can improve the shortlist, as it is important that those role models exist. A lot of women were telling us, “It is a model of excellence,” and, “Having an SJA award can be career changing.” You often see journalists being interviewed on television, and they have their SJA trophy in the background, which is nice. We found a few key things and have since implemented several of the recommendations. For example, trying as much as possible to have a 50:50 gender split on the panel. We also did some work looking at workshops and mentoring; that was something that really came out of the review. What happened, though, is that we lost our major funding partner—we are going to go back to money now—our major sponsor. For 18 months after that, we were spending our time just trying to get the award ceremony to happen. We are all volunteers on the SJA committee, and ensuring the awards happened was our main priority, as it would not have happened without that focus. However, since we had our awards in April, we have increased the number of women on the shortlist, but it is still not where it should be. We have also implemented a new structure on the committee. I have asked for sub-committee groups, and one in particular is looking at inclusion and diversity, so they can concentrate on that. We recognised that, while we were all concentrating on trying to get the awards ceremony off the ground, we were not looking at the other aspects we should have been. Mentorship remains key to that, and it is something we are hoping to improve over the next year or so.

Kim Leadbeater

Ashley, it is always good to hear a good strong Yorkshire accent in Parliament and, in true Yorkshire style, it always comes back to money—you are quite right. Barbara, I had the pleasure of coming to see you at BBC Sport about four years ago. It was a fantastic visit, so thank you very much for that. I hope you are enjoying the freedom of being able to speak a bit more freely, maybe, than you could. You have touched on role models, particularly in terms of presenters. In terms of having women in senior decision-making roles when it comes to the recruitment and progression of women in sports media, how important do you think that is?

Barbara Slater

It is absolutely crucial, and in many ways I think the same applies. You need to see women in those senior roles to allow people to aspire. There is a long way to go. It felt very lonely at times, I am afraid. I wish it did not, but there are lots of complicated reasons for that. Often, you have a very talented woman and, for personal reasons, she decides other things are more important. A work-life balance is incredibly relevant here, because it is a very competitive industry. Natalie spoke very well on that. There is a pressure that does not necessarily always work with family life, and that should be recognised and built in somehow. It is better, significantly better. I hope that over the coming years we will see far more women coming through. When I joined—many, many years ago—if you had said to me there would ever have been a female head of department, I would have laughed at you, and I would have said, “That is simply not possible.” I would now say that if you have the talent and the absolute steel and determination, you can aspire to all sorts of roles. We have a woman chair of the FA. Indeed, if you look across UK sport, we have an amazing track record of really impressive senior women. Liz Nicholl comes to mind, and Sally Munday—women who are absolutely shaping British sport at that level. Massive progress has been made, but it is not there yet.

Kim Leadbeater

Going back to Richard’s question about apprenticeships, we were fortunate to be able to go to Sky Sports this morning, and we met some absolutely outstanding young female apprentices on its scheme. That was a scheme I did not know about, and it was extremely impressive. You could tell that those four young women had got huge futures ahead of them. In terms of the barriers that they may face, what do you think are the biggest barriers that might stop them progressing?

Barbara Slater

I suppose it is some of the attitudes that they will encounter, because sadly there are quite a few dinosaurs still out there. Somebody talked about allyship, and I thought it was very interesting. Allyship is really important. Seeking out those allies and rewarding those who demonstrate that allyship is incredibly important. The environment in the workplace is much better, but I do not think it is necessarily there yet. I just hope they are all very tough. Can I just say, I am so pleased that social media—[Interruption.]

Chair

I am afraid we need to suspend the sitting briefly so that we can vote. I am so sorry, but we will return as soon as we can. Sitting suspended for a Division in the House. On resuming—

Kim Leadbeater

Thank you Chair, and thank you for that, Barbara. Leon, just coming to you. You—in the nicest possible way—seem to have been doing this for quite a while. How have you seen diversity within the sports media sector change over time?

Leon Mann

We had this question at our D Word conference two weeks ago, and there were varied answers from those in the room. I have my perspective, and I will probably start with that, in terms of saying things have absolutely changed. Jeanette Kwakye, who is on our BCOMS board, has emerged from being a former athlete into now being a major part of the BBC’s talent team. Reshmin Chowdhury is an Asian woman who has come through from Real Madrid TV to being on TNT as a lead presenter. There are examples that things have got better, but it is still not enough. Many of the people at the conference would shout me down for saying this here, so it is important to share that perspective as well. From their point of view, things have not changed at all. While I personally do not think that is the case, they genuinely feel that nothing has changed within their industry. That is interesting, and it would be great to show stats indicating the changes so that people can see it, because they currently feel that things have not changed. Sometimes when we talk about role models and change, who are we talking about? Are we talking about women of colour? Are we talking about women who wear a hijab? Are we talking about the wide spectrum of what it means to be a woman, or to be diverse? Barbara, this is not a slight on what you are saying at all because those are very good examples, but they are all white women. Many of them have incredible support networks to help them achieve. That is not saying that it would have been easier for them at all. If your dad is a famous footballer, you will have other challenges in the workplace because people will assume you are being given things. It is a complex conversation; it is not a straight line. Again, many people at that conference would shout me down for even sharing that perspective here, because they do not feel it is the case. They feel people get favours because of who their family members are, and so on. But I believe it is much more complex, and that is what I would want to represent here. Things are getting better, but they are not getting better for everybody. A lot of young black and Asian women coming into the industry are seeing the Jeanettes, the Reshmins, the Alex Scotts on screen, and saying, “I want to be like them.” But the pathway is incredibly tricky. Many of them have not won gold medals at the Olympics, or even been to the Olympics. Many of them have not played 400 times for their country, won major medals in football in this country or even been athletes at all. This is where they might begin to question things, and I guess that is where a Reshmin Chowdhury becomes more of an achievable role model because she is presenting the Champions League on TNT as somebody who has never kicked a ball. Sorry, Reshmin, if you are watching and you have. She is a good friend of mine and, as far as I know, she has not played professionally. She has worked through those professional layers. We need to consider all those things when we talk about who the role models are and who gets opportunities and chances. For example, I have a major problem going into schools in Tottenham, in Brixton, wherever there are very diverse communities, and saying, “You are not going to be something, you are better off becoming a professional footballer or athlete before you get a chance to be a presenter.” That cannot be the situation.

Kim Leadbeater

We talked about that a bit this morning as well, in terms of school careers education. Most schools do not even talk about those jobs, so most kids do not even know those jobs exist. There is maybe a piece of work to be done there. We talked a lot about race, we talked a lot about gender, and I guess with lots of other issues, there will be an intersection with disability and LGBT communities as well. What do you think the most important intervention is to improve diversity within sports media, and do we need different interventions for different groups?

Leon Mann

Yes, I have talked in the past about how it feels like that in that intersectionality, those protected characteristics, there is a bit of a hierarchy in terms of protected characteristics, with disability sitting at the very bottom. If you are black and disabled, good luck to you. You know, we have Ade Adepitan, who is a good example of someone who is amazing, who has made his way through. Again, he is a former athlete in terms of his pathway into the presenter seat. We do not have enough information and knowledge around those experiences. We do not have enough data to refer back to. I can give you a view, but it is very much based on my experience of the world as a straight man of mixed heritage from north London. That might be of value but, again, it is not anchored in all the points needed. If you were trying to change any industry, it would be around data, it would be around serious knowledge, it would be around bringing serious expertise, it would be about a pathway plan. It would be about what we are saying to our universities, what we are saying to our media schools. They are calling me and saying, “We are not getting enough diverse people from the colleges.” I am going, “Right, okay, that is another problem to add to the list to solve.” If we are all really joined up about this, we can do some amazing things. I am really positive about it because the change that we have had, in my view, has come down to people who care, have done things and have made decisions as individuals. That is what it is. There is a woman, formerly of the BBC, Shelley Alexander. She said, “Leon, I reckon you could do something at the BBC one day.” I was an anti-racism campaigner, and I said, “Oh. What? Really? You think I could? I have always wanted to do that but never saw anyone who looked like me who was doing it.” She said, “What about Garth Crooks?” I said, “Well, he played 400 games for Tottenham Hotspur in the top league. I’m all right at football, but I’m not that good.” Again, what is the plan? What are the conversations? I must say, I have been really encouraged by the individual conversations I have had with very senior leaders, right at the top of Sky, TNT, the newspapers, Press Association, BBC, ITV. What is missing is co-ordination. Do we do that? I mean, we have been a charity for 15 years, but for the last six months we have had hardly any funding. I am self-funding part of this. Are we going to solve this problem on our own, or is this going to be something that is seriously joined up with a proper plan?

Chair

We are conscious of time, so we are now going to have to move on to Rachel. We will have to whiz through both questions and answers, please.

Rachel Taylor

It is interesting that you are talking about the pathways for people who have been fairly famous athletes or sportspeople, as that is where our inquiry first started, about participation in sport more broadly than the playing side. Moving on from that, in your experience, how supportive is the sports media sector of employees with family or caring responsibilities?

Ashley Broadley

I can only look at it through what I oversee at PA. I came from a news background, and when I moved from the PA news desk to the sports desk, I saw that there were far fewer women—it was quite stark. Since then, I have put in place initiatives that have had some success. For the Paris Olympics, for example, we sent eight reporters and I insisted on it being a 50:50 gender split. We have also improved our maternity leave. We have a female CEO and a female chief people officer right at the top of the business, which is really encouraging, and they provide great role models. To Leon’s point, it has been a slow process. Now we have a deputy sports editor who is a woman, but it has taken some years for that to happen because people remain in positions a long time and the industry is shrinking. Put those two things together, and you have blockages. You have blockers there, and that is something that has to be overcome somehow. Very quickly, on to Leon’s point about collaboration: that is something that also came out in our SJA awards report. We have all these amazing groups—Women in Football, BCOMS, the SJA—and while we talk, we are not talking well enough together. If we can, with the support of Government, it could be a much more powerful organisation. Then we could get sports editors and decision makers around the table so we can be a much more forceful organisation.

Rachel Taylor

Barbara, do you think sport has a particular workplace culture, as distinct from journalism more generally?

Barbara Slater

Do you mean a distinction between broadcasting and journalism?

Rachel Taylor

A distinction between sports journalism and journalism more widely. Do you think there is a different culture in the workplace?

Barbara Slater

I would say there is maybe a bit of a legacy issue there that I believe will be overcome over time. There is probably a starting point that, in a way, goes back to expertise. Do women have the expertise? Hopefully that is a myth we can get rid of, of course. There is just a bit of a time lag. Is it tougher in sports journalism? Yes, it is. There is probably still a reluctance to have women talking about men’s sport. That is not sufficiently in place. I would say one of the big challenges in what you were just saying is that it is increasingly a freelance world. We should not lose sight of the fact that that disadvantages women, because there are not the workplace protections in a very freelance-driven culture. I would say that, as legacy shrinks, it is probably only going to get worse.

Rachel Taylor

Leon, do you think freelance culture has an impact on other groups, as well as women?

Leon Mann

Yes. Interestingly, I thought that having more freelancers would be an opportunity to diversify your workforce. For years, we were told, “Well, actually, there are no jobs here. There is very little movement.” To address the previous question about sport versus the wider media, it feels like lots of people do not leave sport because everyone is hanging on for the next Olympics, the next World Cup. It is great working in the sports media, it really is, and a lot of people hang around for those big moments. That would be an interesting thing to look at. Again, I have not seen any data points to be able to refer to.

Rachel Taylor

It is true. Not just in journalism.

Leon Mann

Really, I would flip this on its head and say, “Okay, we have more freelance opportunities, so you have more opportunities to choose who you have coming in. You are not wedded to the person who will not move from their contract because they are waiting for the Olympics in LA. You can have more freedom of movement in terms of who you choose to employ. Employ more women, more freelancers.” There is maybe an opportunity there. That would suit the kind of trends I am seeing with many of the young people who do not necessarily want a full-time job at the BBC. They can do their content creation and their production work, and they can live between those two worlds and maybe have a more interesting career, as opposed to being on one path. It would be interesting to do a session such as this with young people to get their perspective.

Rosie Duffield

What is your assessment of how effectively broadcasters approach the safeguarding of their staff, particularly those in the public eye? I am really mindful of the fact that this is all to do with the fact that we are essentially in a wild west situation, largely because legacy media is just not employing anyone.

Barbara Slater

I am so pleased that social media abuse has come up several times in the discussion, because this is a massive issue. There is only so much an employer can do. By the way, there is a real appetite to offer support and help in these circumstances, but it is incredibly difficult—I know I am probably reaching way beyond the powers of this group. I just do not understand how it is possible for people to be so abusive without being identified and called to account. If a newspaper published an article that defamed somebody, there would be consequences. Yet it seems to me entirely possible to say whatever you like on social media, however derogatory, and nothing is done. I know at the BBC—I am sure other organisations are the same—there is moderation of comments. There are people who act as a filter for those comments, but that is controlled within the organisation, not an individual’s site. Frankly, I just do not think enough is done. Some of it is just outrageous. Well, you have all experienced it.

Rosie Duffield

Yes. Leon, you have been really involved with organisations such as Kick It Out and Show Racism the Red Card, but in terms of that wild west, do you feel a bit lost as well? How do you control it?

Leon Mann

I know Kick It Out has done a lot of work in this space, particularly on protecting many footballers, and Sanjay Bhandari as chair has done loads in this space as well. What we are seeing and hearing from our journalists is very similar to what Flo was sharing earlier: if you share an opinion on something, there is a big pile-on. I have noticed what feels like a co-ordinated response to some of the things I say on social media. I almost feel like what I said is being put into far-right WhatsApp groups or forums, because there is so much engagement on that one particular post, where there is not on others I share. It is something that we need to be aware of. We know all the challenges there are with freedom of speech and the dynamic that exists, but it will absolutely put off young women from becoming journalists. It will put off people of colour, and it is going to put off so many others. At the London Olympics in 2012—when it was not as bad as it is now—I saw household names jump off social media because they just could not deal with the abuse and do their job in the best possible way. I was shocked, but that was the reality they faced. They could not do their job to the best of their ability with that in their ear.

Rosie Duffield

If the panel could recommend one practical intervention to reduce the abuse and harassment aimed at women and people of colour working in sports media, what would have the greatest effect?

Ashley Broadley

Is it not the social media companies’ responsibility? It should be them we are telling, preferably through legislation. As Barbara said, if we publish something that defames someone, we are held to account for that through IPSO or the courts. As you say, right now it is just the wild west, so the buck has to stop with the social media companies.

Barbara Slater

It is the anonymity that is the issue. People can create multiple accounts and so on, but surely those can be traced back to individuals.

Leon Mann

It would be interesting to look at the interventions around online pornography, in terms of registering your passport or whatever. I have read in the news about the positive impact that has had in that space. That would be interesting to review, because I believe there clearly needs to be some regulation here. When using a particular platform in this country, maybe you have to share your details. I understand that in other parts of the world—for example, I have heard an argument around this in the middle east—sharing your details could be dangerous when using a platform. I understand that. However, do we have a different situation here in the UK that means we should be asking people to register their passport or personal details? In my opinion, we have not had that conversation loudly enough, because something needs to change. This is a significant issue, way beyond just sports media.

Christine Jardine

I said when you were all out that this is quite odd for me, because I have worked for both the Press Association and the BBC in my career, so déjà vu. Barbara, what factors do you think are influencing the prominence and volume of women’s sports broadcasting?

Barbara Slater

First, huge progress has been made. Major events have really ignited interest in women’s sport, and they provide a great platform. It is a struggle, though. The truth is that, in the current economic climate, cutbacks to public service broadcasters are a huge challenge. There are massive opportunities in the digital space, and an example would be netball, but the challenge is getting the eyeballs to that content. Compared with even the relatively recent past, there is now unprecedented choice. Governing bodies are individually able to cover their events, and they might not have a traditional media partner, but there is YouTube and other opportunities, and there is broadcasting in the digital space. The problem is how to let an audience know it is happening. On the one hand, you have massive opportunity, and on the other, you have the challenge of the audience ever finding that content. However, I do not think we should lose sight of the importance of those pinnacle moments, because success across a number of events—including women’s football, women’s rugby and our athletes across Olympic sports—has fundamentally shifted attitudes and mindsets to women’s sport. The big challenge is how to keep that momentum going and how to build from it. The women’s football was one of the most watched television programmes of the year; more than dramas, comedies, anything. That was extraordinary. If you had said that a few years ago, people would have said, “That is impossible.” But it is not yet translating down, and broadcasters are going to look at audience numbers because it is their job to make sure that what they are broadcasting appeals to as broad a section of the population as possible, accepting that in a public service space you can take risks. You can take more risks than you can if you are a predominantly commercially driven model. I would say we have seen the evidence of that. It is a moment of concern, but we should not lose sight of the progress that has been made. One of the challenges is how you let people know there is a huge volume of coverage of women’s sport, but it goes under the radar.

Christine Jardine

Sky has called for targeted tax relief for live broadcast of women’s sports. What are your thoughts on that, and do you think that could help drive it?

Barbara Slater

I would say interventions and the listed events legislation. We have now listed women’s events. Those protections and interventions, if they are proportionate, should absolutely take place. Women’s sport is a great space of opportunity, and it is worth really getting behind it and supporting it. Imagine the value if we had greater equality more broadly. You look at men’s sport and the money and everything that is generated there; if you could start to see women’s sport viewed in the same way, that is a massive opportunity. Therefore, a proportionate and sensible intervention is absolutely welcome.

Leon Mann

Alexis Ohanian speaks incredibly well on this, as a businessperson focused on making money. If we look at things like that, things change pretty quickly. When people want to make money, they make big decisions and do big things.

Ashley Broadley

The amount of women’s sport content has increased. We have seen a lot of newspapers put some in. The Premier League still rules, as was said by the earlier panel. We have introduced a women’s football journalist award at the SJA to recognise how much reporting goes into that now. Then, with my PA hat on, we ripped up our specification some five or six years ago, and we now do comprehensive coverage of the WSL, the Lionesses, women’s cricket, women’s rugby, women’s cricket at The Hundred. We have dropped off some other sports because of that, but I am keen that we have that content out there for customers to use if they so wish. Internally, it also shows that we are supporting women’s sport as part of our organisation.

Chair

You have all given brilliant evidence this afternoon, thank you. I have one final question for Barbara before we close. The general theme of everything we have heard this afternoon is that things are probably getting better. However, we started off with the issue of not enough applications coming in for jobs even now, and we have talked about the challenge of athletes being transitioned across because they come with the currency of having that prominence. From your rich experience, where are the biggest remaining challenges? What is the reason that there are not more women in that application pile?

Barbara Slater

Well, it goes back to where you are recruiting from, so you have to track it right back down to the universities. When I was in post, we worked with universities and we were always incredibly taken by those for whom equality was important. Interestingly, for some universities, it just was not an issue they were even considering. I have lectured and spoken in places where you look across a room of people and think, “Oh, yes, there is a woman at the back,” and it literally is like that. This is not just a top-end issue; it has to go right the way down. Almost to the playground, where the chances are the girls are standing around the outside and the boys are playing football. It is that deeply rooted. I do not think we are going to see big changes until there is more societal change. If you go to the top end, it is where you want attitudes and mindsets to change towards women’s sport, so that it is seen to have credibility and kudos. It is, “I want to be that champion footballer. I want to win that medal at the games.” Obviously, not everyone will be able to do that, but it opens doors to a role in the industry. We should not just be looking at journalism; if this is the whole of broadcasting, there is a mass of technical roles there, which is another massive space of opportunity. Again, we see it is a very male-dominated area, and we do not see women there. If you were to go to the technical colleges—I have not been, so I have to admit I do not know—I suspect you are going to see a similar balance. So your nursery slopes, the training grounds, so to speak, are still male-dominated.

Chair

Brilliant, thank you. We will call it to a close there. Thank you so much to all three of you for your fantastic evidence this afternoon. Thank you for giving us your time.