To anyone who’s familiar with WNBA coverage, it’s no surprise that a recent video of a mid-game disagreement between Caitlin Clark and her coach went viral. It’s typical of the types of incidents that bring the league into the national news. Plus, everything Clark does gets outsized attention.
How did Indy journalists do covering that moment? And what does that tell us about how our local journalists cover women’s pro sports?
Because of Clark and the Fever, Indy is ground zero for the revolution in professional women’s sports. While it’s come a long way, media coverage of women’s professional sports pales in comparison to what the men get.
Figuring out why that is is a vicious circle of blame. Historically, women’s sports have not attracted as many fans as men’s sports. Without hordes of fans, there haven’t been big money sponsors and advertisers. Without the money, there isn’t a lot of media coverage. Without the media coverage, women’s teams get smaller audiences.
When Clark went pro and came to town in 2024, all that changed for the WNBA. It’s called the Caitlin Clark effect: when one dynamic player changes the entire environment, including ticket sales, TV contracts, and news coverage.
But there’s a well-documented downside to the Caitlin Clark effect: the media spotlight isn’t always on the action. Instead, commentators and critics love to scrutinize Clark, seeing her through a different lens and applying a different standard than they would have for a male star.
This CNN article explains the dynamic male sports commentators suddenly faced when Clark entered the league.
Much of that was in play during this recent moment. We can’t hear the conversation in the video. All we see are Clark and her coach, Stephanie White, being very animated in what appears to be a disagreement.
I looked over all the coverage of that video, and I talked to experts who study the differences between how the media covers men’s sports and how it covers women’s.
Media attention of viral moment points to inequality in sports coverage
By my count, there were 11 local news stories about the Clark-White argument, with more than half of them from the IndyStar. There were countless other stories reported by national outlets, sports commentators and social media influencers.
The IndyStar reported on the initial moment of the conversation on June 1, then followed up that coverage with press conference videos of Clark first, and White second, answering the reporter’s questions about the exchange. The Star added two more stories later that week.
The first detailed advice and insight from former WNBA players Cheryl Miller and Sue Bird. The second story had Clark and White dismissing speculation that their relationship is frayed.
I made several inquiries to the IndyStar, asking about their coverage of the Clark/White conversation, and I got this statement from Nat Newell, IndyStar sports editor:
A moment involving the sport’s most prominent figure and her head coach, captured on camera during a loss, is news. We covered it and immediately provided context — press conference responses from both Clark and White, perspective from respected former WNBA players, and a follow-up story that directly challenged the inaccurate framing circulating on social media. That is comprehensive, responsible sports journalism.
The IndyStar has made covering the Indiana Fever and women’s sports a deliberate editorial priority. Our readers want more than game coverage. They want access to the players, insight into coaching strategy, and context on the league. That’s what we deliver. Framing any portion of that coverage as inequitable is inaccurate and is a mischaracterization of our reporting.
A disproportionate focus on normal conflict is just one of several issues when it comes to the media’s treatment of women’s sports. Distorted coverage is another problem, when equivalent men’s games garner much more attention and resources.
There is a paradox when it comes to sports news and the record-breaking popularity and growth of women’s sports. Women’s professional basketball has skyrocketed in popularity, since Clark joined the WNBA. All while the sports departments in local newsrooms across the country, including the markets that host WNBA teams, have faced layoffs and closures.
“As professional women’s sports teams are expanding to new markets, what I’m observing in my studies is that local newsrooms are shrinking, so women’s sports assignments become an add-on to folks who are already covering other sports,” Dunja Antunovic told me. She’s studied this dynamic as an associate professor of sport sociology at the University of Minnesota. Her current work seeks to better understand how journalists in different markets are navigating this trend.
A dedicated reporter makes a big difference
Rarely do news outlets assign a dedicated reporter to cover a professional women’s sports team like the Fever. In many cases, Antunovic said, that assignment is added to the responsibilities of the reporter who covers men’s teams or high school sports.
The IndyStar is an exception. Reporter Chloe Peterson covers the Fever full time. She is backed up by Joshua Heron, who also covers prep sports. It’s worth noting that Peterson’s stories on the argument brought perspective and insight, while Heron’s stories were about the drama. Neither Peterson nor Heron would comment for this column.
In The New York Times’ sports newsroom, The Athletic, the reporter for Indiana primarily covers the Colts. There is no one dedicated to covering the Fever or Caitlin Clark in The Times’ sports department.
Sports reporters are often thrown into covering women’s sports even though they haven’t built relationships with the players and coaches, Antunovic said. As a result, they lack the access to provide insider coverage that puts fans closer to the game, and inside the heads of key personalities.
“So what happens is they might then default to using athlete’s social media pages, or they might write these stories that could maybe generate clicks as opposed to actually being able to do the reporting,” Antunovic said. “I think we saw that kind of sentiment come up in Stephanie White’s statement in that press conference, where she said something like, ‘this is not journalism; this is, you’re following bots.’ ”
As a researcher who closely tracks the coverage, she hears from experienced journalists who are concerned that women’s sports are gaining attention from ‘influencers’ or even reporters, who lack sufficient knowledge and equate normal disputes to drama.
With less coverage of women’s sports, fair content matters even more
The glut of coverage of men’s sports lets consumers choose from stories on the competitive play, stories on the individual players and coaches on and off the court stories, and about interpersonal dynamics, Antunovic said. With women’s sports, every story counts.
The sports media have failed to keep pace with the growing popularity of the women’s game.
“Whether you’re looking at print media, online media, social media, content that’s produced by legacy media outlets — it tends to be dominated by men’s sports and male athletes,” said Cheryl Cooky, a professor of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at Purdue University.
Recent research has shown that within the last year that women’s coverage breaks the 10% threshold, Cooky said. Both researchers point out that looking at current coverage, the more stories there are, the more likely it is that stories veer into problematic territory.
Speaking specifically about the Clark/White argument caught on tape, Cooky said the same behavior during a men’s game would not have generated nearly the same amount of press. After all, she notes, animated exchanges between collegiate men’s basketball coaches and players are common during March Madness, which is not the same level of play, but we are used to seeing that behavior from men.
“It aligns with our expectations for men and how men demonstrate leadership, or demonstrate good coaching behaviors, or what we might expect and so creates less of a controversy,” Cooky said.
Cover the game—don’t create a story that isn’t there
Both Cooky and Antunovic pointed out that, to stay relevant, journalists must provide what audiences want: continuous, comprehensive women’s sports coverage.
“Responses on social media from fans are a real good indicator that this is not the kind of content real fans are interested in,” Cooky said. “If your goal as a journalist is to cover what’s happening in the world of sports, your responsibility is to cover what’s happening, not create the story.”
Antunovic and Cooky co-authored a book, “Serving Equality: Feminism, Media, and Women’s Sports,” in which they touch on reporters calling each other out on bad coverage. “And I think that’s also noteworthy, right?” said Antunovic. “That it’s not just audiences being like, ‘stop doing this,’ right? It’s journalists telling each other, ‘you cannot cover women’s sports in this way.’”
It’s telling that in both the IndyStar and the New York Times’ The Athletic, the reporters who cover the Fever (for the Star) or the WNBA (for the Times) reported on the Clark/White disagreement with more context and noted why the incident received outsized media attention, as noted in The Athletic’s story.
Meanwhile, the other reporters, who only cover women’s basketball part time at each outlet, reported on the initial story about Clark and White’s heated exchange. For example, The Athletic’s James Boyd, whose primary job is to cover the Colts, broke the news about the disagreement with this first story for the outlet.
If you’re one of the many fans of women’s sports, it may take some digging and filtering of content to find the good stories. If you’re casually interested in women’s sports, you’re probably going to see the clickbait first. Don’t stop there.
The audience has traveled further than sports journalists have. News consumers are demanding good coverage of women’s sports. Voting with your interest and continuing to be vocal about how these athletes should be covered can turn the tide. Women’s sports coverage may never get to true parity with men. But we deserve better options than we have now.
Tracey Compton is Poynter’s Indianapolis Public Editor. You can send your questions about local media to her at indypubliceditor@poynter.org.
Mirror Indy publishes the Indianapolis public editor columns as part of a partnership with Poynter Institute to increase media literacy and trust in local journalism.
