There is continuing evidence that North American newspaper sports departments are under pressure to rethink the contents of their sports pages as part of an overall strategy to gain larger readerships and rebuild their revenue base which eroded during the last recession (Sparks, 1994). Rambo (1986) has noted that some sports departments in the United States have hired more women sports journalists as a strategy to appeal to women readers and expand thereby their section readerships and

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... advertising income. However, as reported in the literature, the overall number of women sports journalists working in major daily newspapers remains low. Women represent approximately 9% of the total work force of newspaper sports reporters in the United States (Eberhard & Myers, 1986) and 4.3% in Canada (Sparks, 1991). In addition to being under represented, women working in sports journalism often face discrimination on the job. This discrimination is, for example, revealed in a lack of high profile assignments and in difficulties with accessing senior editorial ranks (Eberhard & Myers, 1988; Creedon, 1994). This thesis investigated the work environment in Canadian daily newspaper sports departments and assessed the differential impacts of hiring practices, assignments procedures and promotion opportunities on women and men sports reporters respectively. Data was collected through a national survey. Questionnaires were sent to all women sports reporters (N=21) working full-time in a Canadian daily newspaper and to all men sports reporters (N=134) working full-time in a Canadian daily newspaper that employed one or more women sports reporters full-time. Questionnaires were also sent to all sports editors (N=106) working for a Canadian daily newspaper. Separate questionnaires were designed for sports reporters and for sports editors. For sports reporters a total of 88 questionnaires (56.8%) were completed and returned, 16 (76.2%) from women sports reporters and 72 (53.7%) from men sports repor [...]