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Can the headlines out of the Olympics get any worse?
From accusations of paedophilia to sexism to racism, reporting on Rio has got it all.
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Here are five examples of such terrible headlines and descriptions out of the Olympics so far.
1. In Ghana, Accra-based Kasapa FM was forced to apologise to Kaya Forson after a social media storm criticising the headline used hours before the Olympian was scheduled to participate in the 200 metre freestyle.
The headline read: “MEET Sexy Ghanaian Olympic Swimmer Kaya Adwoa Forson”. Pulse News’ Stacey Knott was one of the first people online to have pointed out that it was inappropriate to describe Kaya Forson as ‘sexy’ especially because she was just 14 years old.
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Such language was not used to describe the only other Ghanaian swimmer at the Olympics, 16 year old Abeiku Jackson a few days later.
2. When 19 year old Katie Ledecky broke her own record to win the 400 metre freestyle, one news website described her the ‘female Michael’ Phelps while a teammate (male) of Ledecky said her athleticism was ‘like a guy’.
3. Like Katie, it appears that many of these female athletes need to be compared to men before their incredible talents can be fully understood by the audience. Case in point was a description of Olympic gymnast Simone Biles. “I think she might even go higher than some of the men” – Jim Watson of NBC said.
4. The Chicago Tribune have also had to apologise after one of such distasteful descriptions. It described Corey Cogdell, an Olympic bronze winning trap shooter, as “Wife of a Bears' lineman”. The Tribune probably thought highlighting her marital status and her husband’s job was a lot more important to audiences than her own name.
5. Perhaps the most disappointing of all headlines so far from Rio, came from Mercury News, based in California. After Simone Manuel historic Olympic win they thought it was most fitting to give this headline.
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Manuel is the first African-American woman to win an individual Olympic gold in swimming.
Research by Cambridge University Press found that analysing words used to describe male and female athletes, the most commonly used words for female athletes included aged, older, pregnant and married or unmarried. For males, they were; fastest, strong, big and great.
Many have attributed the reason behind this kind of language to be a lack of experience reporting on sportswomen and a shortage of women in sports news rooms. Women’s sports are highly under-reported so unless in events such the Olympics or World Athletics Championships, many of these commentators have not had any experience reporting about incredibly talented women.
However, that is no excuse as when reporting on male athletes, these commentators do not describe them based on their looks or the occupation of their partners.
It is also important that more women are recruited as sports journalists, as editors and in other positions of power in the newsroom. This ensures that such awful descriptions are drastically reduced.
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The Games have some more days to go and it appears that more of such headlines and descriptions will continue to come but with the level of social media bashing, albeit at a much reduced spate.
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