Journalist Naomi Tappia launches training for females interested in sports journalism, decries demotivation of female sports journalist
The Truth FM Head of Sports Naomi Tappia has launched a training exercise for women and girls who are interested in sports reporting.
According to journalist Tappia, her aim of launching the training exercise was triggered by the scarcity of females in sports reporting which allows that section of journalism male-dominated. She said the project is in connection with her promise made during her International Visitation Leadership Program (IVLP) in 2019 in Washington D.C. and other parts of the United States.
Journalist Tappia who heads the Media Council of Federation of International Basketball Association (FIBA) Africa Zone Three, narrated that females expressing interest in the field will benefit intellectually as sports being mind games help shift the thinking of athletes and those involved in it.
She revealed that she became appreciative and more enthusiastic about her reportorial duties as a female sports journalist when she met her 48 professional counterparts who came from different continents with amazing understandings of the career that is dominated worldwide, while she termed Liberia’s situation of female underrepresentation in sports journalism as catastrophic.
She, however, admonished females to take advantage of the training irrespective of their religious, cultural, and educational backgrounds as the above-mentioned impede the participation of women in the field of journalism.
She alerted religious leaders, married men, and traditionalists to support women’s participation in sports instead of preventing them due to culture.
Meanwhile, journalist Tappia decried stakeholders’ act of prioritizing male journalists over the very few female sports reporters during sporting events across the country.
According to her, while it is true some sporting institutions like the Liberia Football Association and others try their best in that area, more needs to be done to put the females in Liberia on part with other female sports journalists around the world, asserting that they have potentials that are capable of taking them to world level.
She lamented the idea of male journalists frequently traveling with the national team while the females who are capable of discharging similar duties are left out. Ms. Naomi called on every stakeholder to receive her message in good faith as it is intended to remind them of doing the needful that will help shift the narrative of the sporting arena of Liberia.
Reported by Sports Director: Sylvester Tamba
Email: stamba498@gmail.com
Phone number: +231776687195
Whatsapp number: +231776687195
