Siren #139: Equity in sports media + more on our ABC partnership and Vale Adam
A Women in Sport Collective
It’s been a big month at Siren HQ! And we are thrilled to be back in your inboxes with a whole lot of good stuff.
If you follow us on Instagram you may have seen that Siren co-founders, Kasey Symons, Kirby Fenwick and Kate O’Halloran were sitting behind the mics at the ABC studios in Melbourne this month.
While we can’t share too much about exactly what we’re doing right now we can tell you that we’re collaborating with the wonderful team at ABC Sport on some fantastic resources for emerging sports media superstars.
We cannot wait to share that with you so stay tuned!
This is exactly the kind of work we’re leaning into at Siren. Creating resources. Creating opportunity. Creating community. And all in service of challenging the status quo of sports media.
This is work we’re passionate about but it’s also work that takes time and resources. If you can, we very much appreciate your support! You can do that by supporting us over on Patreon.
In this issue
Siren co-founder Kirby Fenwick digs a little deeper in research on media coverage of women’s sport. We share the latest from our partnership with ABC Sport plus we have a fantastic bunch of sports media for you to enjoy!
Equity in sports media? Numbers alone won’t deliver change
Siren co-founder Kirby Fenwick digs into the history of equity in sports media coverage research and why we need more than numbers to effect change.
Vale Adam McKay
The recent passing of Adam McKay has brought much sadness to the women’s basketball community and Siren sends much love to his family and all who knew him.
Adam created the amazing documentary Sidelined: the Fight for Equality in Women’s Basketball and you can read more about the documentary here.
Adam’s approach to content creation for women’s sport showed how much of a genuine ally Adam was to women in sport as well as so many diverse communities through founding Helping Hoops and his volunteering. Adam did the work and championed so many. We were lucky to get to know him a little bit through Sidelined and appreciated all he did for women in hoops.
Thank you Adam.
All the latest from the Siren Sport X ABC Sport Partnership
We’re working behind the scenes on some great stories that will be with you soon but in the meantime, here’s a quick catch up on what we’ve published recently.
Courtney Fewquandie, proud Butchulla and Gubbi Gubbi woman and sports advocate (and also our inaugural Emerging Sport Writer Program participant!) teamed up with video producer and digital content creator Kirsty Marshall to share this story of the award-winning Queer Sporting Alliance, Australia and New Zealand's largest LGBTIQA+ sporting club.
Danielle Croci, writer and podcaster, Making the Call graduate and regular contributor to Siren, spoke with Sarah Styles, the director of the Office for Women in Sport and Recreation about their research on the media coverage of women’s sport.
Siren call: amplifying women in sports media
Siren co-founder Gemma Bastiani is still producing AFLW coverage during the off season for afl.com.au, be sure you’re following her latest pieces like this one on Claudia Whitfort’s contract extension with the Gold Coast Suns and this on potential No.1 draft pick Ash Centra.
Marnie Vinall writes about the unspoken “big issue” affecting women athletes in the lack of deeper consideration for sports bras.
Speaking of sports bras, did you see the news that Portland’s The Sports Bar, a women’s sports bar founded by Jenny Nguyen, is franchising?! How amazing! Congrats Jenny for all you’ve built and what’s to come. Someone bring one to Australia please!
Netball has taken a significant step in its commitment to increase the representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander athletes, Brittany Carter writes for ABC Sport.
In other netball news, how cool to see Georgia Rajic make her SSN commentary debut in Round 1?! Super stuff Georgia!
Georgina Hibberd has a newsletter that y’all should check out and this latest piece on coaching is a beautiful reflection of Georg’s journey.
Check out the latest The Far Post pod for all your A-League Women’s news and Women’s Asian Cup chat.
We’re sending a big congratulations to our friend Megan Maurice on the publication of her new book Life Goes On! We can’t wait to pick up a copy in June! Congrats Megan!
And some more congratulations are in order! We’re sending lots of love to Kelsey Trainor who just got married! Woohoo! Kelsey was a supporter of Siren in the very early days and we love seeing her continue to champion women in sport and get all the things she deserves! Congrats Kelsey and Lauren!
Siren book club
Congratulations to the winners of the Personal Score: Sport, Culture, Identity giveaway. Copies of Ellen van Neerven’s award winning book are on their way to you right now. Enjoy!
And stay tuned for our next Siren Book Club read!
