Women break barriers in sports commentary

Jenessa Moli from Vanuatu TV and final-year journalism student Elizabeth Osifelo (Solomon Islands) were part of the recent Women in News and Sports (WINS) sports commentary training in Lautoka. Picture: SUPPLIED/WANSOLWARA

By ELIZABETH OSIFELO

Seven women from the Pacific took part in a sports commentary training in Lautoka from August 27-31.

The program is part of an initiative called Women in News and Sports (WINS ), which provides training in the Asia Pacific region for female journalists to hone their sports commentary skills in what is considered to be a male-dominated area.

As part of the five-day intensive training, the women were given the opportunity to call out the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) matches during the OFC Women’s Nations Cup qualifier in Lautoka.

The women were selected from Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Fiji and closely followed the OFC Women’s Nations Cup qualifier during the week, with the aim of contributing to sports development in sports commentary and promote gender balance in sports broadcasting. The training program included calling the matches, analysing the game, and a sideline experience on how to conduct football commentary.

Jenessa Moli from Vanuatu TV said she was very lucky to participate in the training because there were not many women in this area of sports reporting.

“Sometimes I feel I need to be careful when doing sports stories because there can be a lot of backlash on social media. It is believed that sports reporting is preferred by males. When going through training like this, I am confident because I know I have the right skills to do a good job.”

International sports commentator and facilitator of the training Aaron Kearney said while there were exciting strides taken by women in sports, the opportunities for female commentators remained rare, adding women were often treated unfairly by certain sectors of the public.

The training helped to boost the participant’s confidence in sports reporting because it gave the learning tips and skills to do commentary professionally.

Mr Kearney said seeing the positive transformation of the women at the end of the training was pure satisfaction.

“Their performance exceeded my expectations. They went from being curious and skeptic to confident sports commentators, calling out the games and analysing play.”

The WINS program is in its finishing stages, and is a pioneering program from ABC national development.

Mr Kearney is still hopeful that the program will still be able to break new ground with women in the broadcasting arena.

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) partnered with ABC International Development to deliver the WINS program across four countries in the Indo-Pacific region in 2016-2017 – Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Indonesia and Vietnam. Based on the success of the program in its first year, it was extended to other countries such as India and Vanuatu in 2018.

* Elizabeth Osifelo (Solomon Islands) is a final-year journalism student at The University of the South Pacific.

Participants of the Women in News and Sports (WINS) sports commentary training during the OFC Women’s Nations Cup qualifier in Lautoka. Picture: SUPPLIED

International sports commentator and training facilitator Aaron Kearney. Picture: SUPPLIED