Generation gap, military rhetoric and polarisation: what needs to change in Italian sports journalism

When Italian swimmer Benedetta Pilato finished fourth in the Women’s 100m Breaststroke at the Paris Olympic Games, her joy was received with dismay. Just 0.01 second behind Irish bronze medallist Mona McSharry, the 19-year-old from Italy said that was the best day of her life. “Really?”, a journalist asked after the race, her tone of voice somewhere between confused and disappointed. 

World and European champion already as a teenager, Pilato has faced huge changes in the last year, leaving her hometown and starting training with a new coach. Aware of the improvement achieved in a short period of time, she just wanted to celebrate the important result. But for some, her reaction was not appropriate. Commentator and former fencer Elisa Di Francisca defined Pilato’s joy “surreal” and “absurd”: she must be sad and disappointed, and if she didn’t believe she would reach the podium, as she should have, “why did she participate?”, the commentator wonders in disbelief. 

As author Dario Saltari wrote, live commentary is not an easy job but these comments go beyond that and reveal all the problems of sports journalism in Italy, from the generation gap to the industry decline.

Lack of empathy and respect 

The episode involving Benedetta Pilato is just one of many examples during the Olympics that showed how news and stories about sport in Italy often lack depth, empathy and respect. The Italian men’s fencing team was described as made up of boys who are “too nice” and supported by their parents: “That is why they win less” than other teams did in the past, journalist and correspondent from Paris Aldo Cazzullo wrote. Sports journalist Elisabetta Caporale started the post-race interview with swimmer Francesca Fangio, who couldn’t make the final of the 200m Breaststroke, stating it wasn’t her night, and asked World champion swimmer Simona Quadarella, who finished fourth in the 1,500m freestyle final, whether she had prepared herself best for the race. As many sports journalists have shown during the Olympics and beyond, it seems that sportspeople have a duty to win and to think only about winning: if this does not happen, something must be wrong with them.

Emanuele Atturo, Editor-in-Chief at the independent online project and sports news website Ultimo Uomo, explains that this mindset comes from “the toxic relationship” we have “with results, developed since the 1990s, when sport embraced a hyper-competitive turbo-capitalist perspective. To simplify, ‘Second place is just the first loser’ and ‘If you want you can’”. Atturo describes it as a “motivational, destructive and self-destructive rhetoric” that used to be “confined to the sports that Italians demanded a lot from, and felt represented by, namely football”, but after the good results achieved at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021 and in tennis recently, “this habit has spread” to other sports. 

This approach though can lead writers away from what sports journalist Marialaura Scatena considers their main responsibility, which is to “make a story accessible” and understandable, instead of “discarding it if it does not meet certain standards”. For instance, she said, “Pilato’s fourth place should have been put into context” because from the outside it can be difficult to understand the value of those competing in the Olympics, and we might end up “recognising only the medals, and almost only the gold”. 

Freelance sports journalist Valerio Moggia argues that an important part of this lack of empathy and respect from the media is also played by military rhetoric in sport: “We consider athletes as warriors, many athletes even describe themselves as such”. He mentioned Italian boxer Angela Carini as an example of a sportsperson who called herself a warrior and then left the match against Algerian Imane Khelif after only 46 seconds: “If you say you are a warrior and then a match goes badly or you withdraw, how do you explain that?”. 

When Italian tennis player Jannik Sinner withdrew from the Paris Olympics due to tonsillitis, several journalists criticised him harshly, including many who do not usually cover sport. Massimo Gramellini, columnist for Italy’s most-read newspaper Corriere della Sera, couldn’t believe that Sinner couldn’t “play the first round at the Olympics stuffed with antibiotics” and described his decision as a sign of a “constructed rather than natural” talent. Despite having said that the Olympics was one of his goals for the year, Sinner’s withdrawal has been judged as selfish and then compared to Italian high jumper Gianmarco Tamberi’s decision to compete despite a renal colic that landed him in hospital the night before. Journalist Paolo Giordano tweeted: “Tamberi literally vomited blood to represent Italy (and himself) at the Olympics. Sinner preferred not to. It is a fact. Let everyone draw the conclusions they want”. 

As Moggia explains, “If you ‘represent’ Italy and then you withdraw because you have the flu, someone steeped in this military rhetoric will come out and say ‘he is a traitor’, because the warrior who fights for his country and retires is a traitor, a coward. It’s the same logic we see in football, where people call certain players ‘traitors’ or ‘mercenaries’, soldiers who follow money”.

An old broken system

There are other factors that contribute to this toxic way of writing about sport in Italy. For instance, there’s a generational issue: Moggia argues that it’s an old-fashioned way of doing sports journalism “that is no longer connected either with the people who read it or with the people it talks about” since athletes are generally very young. “The episode of Benedetta Pilato, mocked just for saying she was happy to have finished fourth” is an example of that. The younger generation seems more open to talk about their mental health, but also “much more aware of the value of the work behind a certain result: they want to do their best, but at the same time they know they don’t have to feel guilty if they don’t win a gold medal”. Moggia thinks that athletes of the past also shared this approach, but “the younger ones have now the courage to admit it”. 

Financial aspects and the industry decline must also be taken into account. Italian journalism has been in an economic crisis for years and using a strong approach that could spark off an intense debate might even be intentional. As Atturo explained, there’s an “attempt to emotionally exaggerate the conversation. Algorithms reward interactions, and  polarisation creates interactions. Attracting negative comments also works: publications no longer seem to care about their own reputation”. It’s an attitude that comes from British tabloids, Atturo pointed out, “where star-system personalities are either sullied or sanctified, two sides of the same coin: you put a hero on a pedestal because when they get dirty they will make more noise. If we look at how The Daily Mail or The Sun used to write about footballers, especially English ones, years ago, it’s what we have now implemented into the main Italian publications”. 

There’s also a “lack of intellectual dignity that is projected onto sport, on many levels”, Atturo said. First, in the workplace. As both Scatena and Moggia noted, sports journalism is taken much less seriously than other topics and those who have the competence and skills to write about it are undervalued. Atturo adds that “newsrooms are increasingly drained and journalists who usually do not write about sport and have not developed specific skills” in the field “are sent to cover major sporting events for the big newspapers”. 

These are mostly established journalists, who are considered so talented that they are able to write excellent articles with minimal effort, he explains, and who are required “to come up every day with a piece that would cause debate, and so always with controversial opinions”. The result can be detrimental: “With no expertise and no real respect for sport that they consider their hobby, sportspeople are treated like rag dolls: mere tools to confirm or deny cultural topics that have nothing to do with sport” and therefore “metaphors for something else”. Atturo thinks “these analyses always seem superficial, malicious, and made without respect, of sportspeople and readers”. 

While society has changed over the years and readers have become “much more knowledgeable, competent and intellectually honest than publications are willing to admit”, he is appalled by how “the quest for a high reputation and an honest relationship with readers has been simply discarded”. Both Atturo and Moggia believe the problem must be sought among those in charge. “We need more insightful editors, directors, editors-in-chief”, Moggia said, and defines the current situation as a “huge contradiction”: “there are many online projects, that often struggle with money or are led by volunteers, where the quality is infinitely higher than that seen in mainstream publications with significant funds”. 

Sexist journalism 

The lack of respect in sports journalism is even more extreme in women’s sports, where it often merges with sexism. When Italy won the gold medal in women’s team epee fencing in Paris, Italian newspaper La Repubblica described the four athletes as “queens: Diletta Leotta’s friend, the Frenchwoman, the psychologist, and the mom”, with Diletta Leotta being an Italian presenter and celebrity. 

As often happens when newspapers talk about women, fencers Rossella Fiamingo, Alberta Santuccio, Giulia Rizzi and Mara Navarria were not called by their names or celebrated for their commitment and achievement, but rather for what they represent or what can draw more attention in a patriarchal society. Tennis players Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini, who won Olympic gold in women’s doubles – Italy’s first ever Olympic tennis gold medal – were instead referred to as “girls”. And then there were the misogynistic and transphobic attacks against Algerian boxer Imane Khelif spread by many journalists, newspapers and news websites. “The International Olympic Committee even drew up guidelines called ‘gender-equal, fair and inclusive representation in sport’!”, Scatena said. 

Infantilised, sexualised or completely neglected, women’s sport in Italy still suffers from patriarchal marginalisation. “Women are less represented”, both as athletes and journalists, Scatena argued, and “sexism is everywhere and so internalised, sometimes even by women themselves, that it is considered a joke”. An example of this sexist approach is the disproportionate attention given to women’s bodies.

Think of gymnastics. The images of women’s competitions are different from those of men: cameras linger more on their bodies, reinforcing the stereotypes we all know

sports journalist Marialaura Scatena

Women’s bodies are even the focus of attention in men’s sport: there, “we move on to girlfriends, partners, sisters of male athletes”. And if it’s not their appearance, it’s the role they might play in an athlete’s life that takes centre stage: a limit to success when he loses or the support he needed if he wins. 

A change is possible 

Despite the popularity of this “fast, chaotic and sexist way of talking about sport”, more sports fans “can’t stand this kind of narrative”, and something is changing, Scatena said. Over the last few years, many new projects have shown that it is possible to talk about sport in a more constructive, competent and respectful way: Ultimo Uomo, where Atturo works, is one of them, while Moggia, who also founded the online project about football, politics, history and civil rights Pallonate in Faccia, mentioned the collective Sportellate. 

Although it is complicated to survive in this long-lasting crisis of Italian journalism, it can be done. For instance, Atturo thinks it would be more useful and helpful to prefer quality rather than quantity: “Is there really a need for all this content, is there really a need for all this coverage in sport?”, he asks. Giving more opportunities to the many talented young sports journalists in Italy would also contribute to a change: there are plenty of people who have studied and worked hard but whose value is not yet recognised. And above all, as Atturo explains, a real change requires “respect for the readers and respect for the subject, love for sport and its communication. To really think that it is an important part of our culture; and that it is important for readers to understand things through sport”. 

“Look around and study”, Scatena stated, because sport is embedded in our society and culture, and everything is changing around us.

Source of the cover photo: airlines470, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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