Students gained insight on the gender divide in the sports industry by listening to the perspective of an experienced journalist Wednesday.
Tina Akouris, the digital news editor for the Chicago Tribune, visited campus to speak with students at 5:30 p.m. in the Horowitz Auditorium of the GCC.
The event was hosted by the Association for Women in Sports Media (AWSM), a recently-formed organization within the Charley Steiner School of Sports Communication that focuses on gender biases not only in sports media, but also through all fields of work.
Akouris spent 15 years at the Chicago Sun-Times working in the sports department, covering events that ranged from high school athletics to the Indy 500. After leaving the Sun-Times, Akouris found her way into radio as she served as a writer and producer for WBBM Newsradio.
Currently, Akouris works as the digital news editor for the Chicago Tribune, managing the websites for the paper’s homepage and for six additional suburban publications.
While speaking, Akouris shared her experience on what it was like for her as a woman in a male-dominated sports newsroom and why she has no plans to return to that area of the newsroom.
“It’s intimidating,” Akouris said. “Even though these guys have known me for 15 years [or] 20 years and they know what I’ve done, they’ve edited my copy, they obviously know I’m not stupid – But I would not go back [to that area of the newsroom where the sports department is], because it is just so intimidating.”
Akouris said she feels as if sports perpetuate a notion of exclusivity.
“Essentially what we want to do as an organization is not necessarily just focus on specifically sports media, but recognize any gender bias in the workplace,” Jaclyn Clark, the president of AWSM, said. “Nursing is super female-dominated and recognizing that and helping those people who are going through the same struggles in a different industry. Obviously, right now we are starting out specifically with sports and sports media, but one day, hopefully, we can be a big enough organization on campus to move away from that.”
Clark said she hopes bringing Akouris to campus will help students understand a female’s perspective in the sports media industry.
“Learn about her experiences: how she has encountered working in the male-dominated field and how she has battled that throughout her years,” Clark said. “Hopefully, we can learn from that now so that [when] we eventually enter the workforce, we know how to properly address it and move forward.”
“I think there is this culture of sports where it is so specialized,” Akouris said. “Not everyone knows or understands what a home run is … There is this stigma that [the sports media field] is so specialized that people just don’t feel comfortable going into it.”
Akouris also said she felt judged for being a woman in and out of the office.
“When I was at an assignment, if I felt I was being discriminated against because I was a woman … It was from the people that I was interviewing,” Akouris said. “Occasionally when I was in the office … I would really feel uncomfortable around the men because it was a weird vibe … they aren’t used to having women in the office, so they don’t realize what they’re doing.”
According to Akouris, an inclusive sports department can help break down some of these gender barriers.
“You have to knock down those glass walls,” Akouris said. “You have to, in a newsroom, not make people feel uncomfortable or intimidated by walking by a sports department. That is a big deal. I think for young men and for young women, too, just know you’re journalists. You have to have each other’s back.”
Students attending the event said Akouris provided a great scope into the struggles of the industry.
“I thought that she did a great job explaining her experience,” sophomore history and special education double major Annie Carroll said. “I especially loved that she said to move forward that both women and men need to be more inclusive. It’s not a one-gendered problem.”
