Human Interest Stories
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Sporting match-ups are always fun to watch, but reporting the same scores over and over again can become monotonous. To occasionally interrupt the endless report of scores and statistics a touching human-interest story is covered amidst the numbers. Generally the target audience for these stories are women and it makes sense to fill the time with stories about women. These stories are an excellent way to entertain viewers and readers, but these stories question the integrity of female athletics. As already discussed, female athletes have enough problems trying to get media attention and to yet again be overshadowed by a feature piece can be frustrating. Not all human interest and related stories are positive, but if they can bring attention to female sports then the writers and broadcasters will use it.
The best example of these features lies in the story
of Dakoda Dowd. This 13-year-old golf prodigy from Florida
was permitted to compete in an LPGA tournament. Her mother
had been diagnosed
with cancer and
only given a month to live. It was her dying wish to get
the chance to see her daughter play in an LPGA tournament,
and after the LPGA caught
wind of the story Dakoda received a sponsor’s exemption to play
in the tournament. Although this young athlete missed the
cut in the first round she was presented with a replica of
the glass bowl that goes
to the winner of the tournament.
However,
not every story has a positive and heart-warming
spin on it. There have been many discussions and criticisms
of male hazing in collegiate athletics, but recently
Sports Illustrated ran a story
about hazing on the female level. The women’s soccer team at Northwestern
University was suspended indefinitely due to pictures that were discovered
of hazing rituals. There was no appearance of foul play, but the women
were pictured in their underwear, blindfolded,
with their hands tied behind their back. Northwestern boasts
of their strict no hazing policies and immediately suspended
the team and removed their roster from the
athletic website. This is extremely bad press for women’s sports,
but it did get the team more headlines than they would
have received for winning some games. 
It is incredibly sad that stories like the one about the women’s soccer team from Northwestern are what are catching headlines. Women do not receive enough press as it is, and then to have a top story portray women in a negative way is frustrating. Human-interest stories like the one of Dakoda Dowd are great and extremely heart-warming, but this girl would have never received any attention for her achievements had this event not occurred. Dakoda is young and already possesses a lot of talent, so it is possible that we will be seeing big things from this girl, but she has already accomplished a lot and deserves press for that. However, in the world of sports entertainment the story of her and her mother is going to sell more magazines and receive more attention.
For more information on these women and issues....
Story on Northwestern's Women's Soccer Team