Last year, Juliet Nottingham graduated with first-class honours in football journalism from the University of Derby. Now a freelancer working in the industry, she writes about research she has undertaken, exploring the challenges experienced by women studying on sports media courses, during and after their degrees…
BY JULIET NOTTINGHAM
Juliet Nottingham, currently finishing off her MA in Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, graduated with first-class honours in Football Journalism from the University of Derby last year.
Published on The Guardian, Football London, Manchester Evening News and for the Manchester City website during her undergraduate course, when she reported live as the Lionesses won Euro 2022 at Wembley, she is freelancing for The Telegraph, ESPN and The FA, with an emphasis on women’s and youth football.
A keen futsal player, Nottingham has twice been shortlisted for the Vikki Orvice Student Football Writer of the Year Award, runner-up in 2024.
Three years on from the culture-changing triumph of Wembley, the Lionesses kick off their defence of the European Championship a week on Saturday.
Euro 2022 was a watershed campaign that engaged and inspired young women across England and the rest of the UK. Such “see it to be it” sentiments have been essential in energising the next generation of girls in sport.
Yet off the field, in sports journalism, the visibility of women still provides a paradox. Gender minorities entering the industry feel the presence of an increasing social visibility. Simultaneously, there remains an absence of visibility of women in mentorship positions in sports media. This seems to be reflecting the gender-wide student experience of learning and leaving university in search of a career.
On sports journalism degrees, which are recruiting a groundbreaking rise in the number of women, gender imbalances remain, along with a lack of diversity normalisation.
Whilst previous research into workplace gender imbalance has centred on the experiences of women already in the sports journalism industry, the relationship between graduating and the first foot in the door has been largely untouched.
At a time of squeezed opportunities for entry-level experience across all graduates, the problem of underrepresentation of women in the sports journalism workplace begins before the office, and therefore presents higher education with a challenge to grapple.
In an industry once described in academia as a “minefield” for women, what can be learned about the recent experiences of graduates, with increased attention on developing women in the field?
A new pilot study from the University of Derby into female graduates of their Football Journalism course, to be presented at the Association for Journalism Education (AJE) Conference this week, found an urgent need for identifiable and visible female mentors in the classroom and workplace.
As one participant said, “If you can’t see people in the job, you’re going to assume it’s not an option.”
Whilst every participant could name women working in the industry – predominantly in broadcasting roles – none could name a female role model, or even a direct line to another woman, in their workplace.
The findings spotlight issues of visibility both as an increased pressure and an inspiration. The conundrum for educators and mentors is to address how best to approach teaching environments and carve out the most effective and useful opportunities for their students.
Despite the NCTJ and various universities reporting an increase in women on accredited courses, both Sports Journalists’ Association and Football Writers’ Association (FWA) membership figures are 5% or less for female writers. Just 2% of FWA members are women who are paid to write about football.
It is no surprise, then, that in the classroom and the workplace of sports journalism, the sentiment from women seems common, as a graduate recently said: “As a female, I don’t think you’ll ever not feel like the odd one out.”
In what we have learned from research of previous decades, the sentiment of ‘add women and stir’ into the newsroom addresses little and progresses even less.
In a time when traditional media employment is shrinking, the feelings of frustration at job opportunities at graduate level are not specific to gender, of course. The majority of the sample reported what appears to be a nationwide, all-gender trend of journalism graduates: the availability of finding feasible paid work, and unrealistic expectations of experience for entry-level opportunities.
Despite 33% of the sample currently working in the industry, over half of the participants had either tried to find work, are actively trying, or had quit the industry following their workplace experience. This discouragement is a hurdle for every graduate attempting to break into the industry, and a seemingly persistent threat to those who have entered it.
In a reminder to well-intentioned educators, there were suggestions of how to improve the experiences of females who felt more pressure to become those new role models before they had even got their foot in the door.
The question is then how, on an increasingly narrow tightrope of industry pathways, do we address tilting the gender balance so that opportunities for female students and graduates are available, whilst maintaining positive classroom cultures?
In the pilot study, the majority of women felt they were treated differently on the male-dominated course due to their gender, from both their classmates and, occasionally, their lecturers. When granted opportunities, many participants felt this attracted unwanted attention from their cohort.
As one said: “I felt extra pressure to prove I had as much knowledge as the males. I often faced comments such as ‘you only got on this course because you’re a female’, which gave me impostor syndrome.”
Other responses included: “Peers felt that I was getting more/different opportunities as I was a female, which was difficult to accept.”
Another: “I feel it affected how some of the male students on the course viewed me and treated me in class. I felt more pressure.”
An increased awareness of the paradox of promoting opportunities for women in male-dominated spaces, whilst carving out incentives and reducing cultural pressure on their work, presents a perhaps newer, but essential, dynamic for sports journalism lecturers, and one that requires further exploration.
Whilst wider industry challenges of accessibility for all entry-level graduates must be considered, the increasing presence of women on sports journalism courses presents the opportunity for an increased proportion of females entering the workplace.
The role of universities and their courses, therefore, must be to hone a culture that allows minority groups in the classroom to develop confidence and merit, free from gender-based pressure.
Whilst concerted effort is needed on understanding gender differences in learning and experience, it is also perhaps a matter of taking the question of gender away from the scene.
Applying pressure on minority individuals in the classroom to be advocates or agents for workplace equality at a stage in life where young people largely learn the ability to advocate for themselves alone seems an unproductive way to build confident graduates.
One participant said: “Sometimes not pointing out or ‘showing off’ there’s women in the industry could help, as it would make it more normalised rather than something ‘special’ as it should be the norm ideally.”’
By building a culture of normalisation at the education level, the widening of possibilities and imagination becomes unbound by gender experience and instead creates an onus on the relationship between educator and student.
There are, of course, long strides to be made for this to produce more visibility of role models and mentors on workplace sites upon entry into the industry.
Further research into the experience and discussion of female sports journalism graduates across the UK would further our understanding in more complete and national industry contexts.
You can connect with Juliet Nottingham on LinkedIn or X. Follow The Association for Journalism Education on X at @TheAJEUK, or on Bluesky.
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