Kyle Garrison
My Stories
Breaking Barriers as a Women Sports Reporter: The Sarah Todd Story
‘She Plays Here’ sidelined: How Utah's women's sports facility was benched
Listen to my KRCL Feature:
Biography
Kyle Garrison is a senior at the University of Utah double majoring in business administration and communication with a journalism emphasis. In his career as a specialty reporter, Kyle has worked as the assistant sports desk editor for The Daily Utah Chronicle, producer of "Unsalvageable: A Utah Jazz Podcast" and a sports production intern at Fox 2 WJBK in Detroit. Kyle works tirelessly to become the most valuable version of himself, perfecting his craft and working toward his goals of play-by-play broadcasting. As someone who is well-versed in writing, editing, production, public speaking and overall reporting, Kyle has worked hard to get where he is today and will continue to strive toward his goals and aspirations within sports media.
Reporter's Notebook
While completing my profile feature story on Sarah Todd's journey, I discovered many aspects of her career that highlighted the challenges of being a woman in sports. The fact that men, despite Todd’s skillset, were surprised at her extensive basketball knowledge even though she has been working in sports for over 10 years now was astonishing. In addition, the disrespect from male colleagues regarding Todd’s appearance showed that despite the growth of women working in sports, there still needs to be a lot of work done to even out the disparity.
Despite readers’ knowledge about the history of women working in sports, the trials and tribulations that Todd faced in her career help illustrate the deeper historical context of women in sports. Whether it was Todd’s parents’ skepticism about her pursuing a career in a “man’s world” or diminishing remarks about how she dresses, Todd faced challenges that female sports reporters have been dealing with for decades.
As I researched the disparity of women sports reporters to men’s and continued to dive deep into Todd’s professional life, I came to a realization that although times have changed in terms of the increased coverage of women’s sports, the lack of female representation actually covering these sports continues to remain the same when looking at an article from University Press. “Based on statistics from Zippia, an online database that used 30 million profiles in the United States, 20.9% of sports reporters are women, and 79.1% are men, per 2021 statistics. In 2010, 80.13% of reporters were men and 19.87% were women.”
As illustrated by the statistics from University Press, women working in sports from 2010 to 2021 increased by only 1%. From my interviews with Todd and other female sports journalists throughout the Salt Lake area, they have all experienced this imbalance at some point in their careers and have continued to push forward regardless of the odds being stacked against them.
Some organizations have started to prioritize hiring women, but from my conversation with former University of Utah student and broadcast reporter for ESPN+, Stevie Shaughnessy, these women feel like sometimes their qualifications are put to the side and they are hired based on their gender. As an industry, in order to truly allow women to feel like equals when working in sports, we have to base hiring off of skillset instead of outside circumstances.
When talking to Todd about her experience as a woman in the field, she has started to gain more respect, but that has come with winning awards, gaining national media attention, and simply being one of the best reporters out there. Acceptance in this rigorous field should be automatic and not based on other factors.
Women like Todd are paving the way for the future, and although we have a long way to go before female representation starts to become equal to men, the accomplishments of so many amazing women are starting to pave the way for future generations to thrive.