An eye-opening and dispiriting account of biased behavior.
A sports journalist for Deadspin reflects on the perils of being female in a toxically male-dominated field.
DiCaro, who segued from a career as an attorney into public relations and then, at age 40, into a position in sports talk radio, focuses primarily on the many difficulties of working at the radio station. After she lost her job during the pandemic, she realized that she was “far from the only woman who had run smack into a brick wall, unable to rise above a part-time, after-hours show.” Drawing on her own experience, as well as those of other women in sports media, she discusses in appalling detail the corrosive effect of the ongoing personal criticism of her voice and appearance by predominantly male callers to the show and, even more distressingly, the multiple attacks by Twitter trolls, including “death threats, rape threats, attempts to get me fired from my job.” DiCaro notes that as a woman sports reporter, it's far easier to get a job reporting objective facts from the sidelines than one where the journalist is allowed to express her opinion. The author insightfully analyzes the hidden biases involved in sports reporting, most notably that her co-hosts seemed all too willing to dismiss claims of sexual or domestic violence against players, in part because the shows depend on sponsorship by local teams. DiCaro aims much of her anger at Barstool Sports, the online media company that “definitely engages in advanced-level trolling.” Some may assume the author is just settling scores, but Barstool has a long reputation of harassment. The first chapter, about women sports journalist who came before, the “smashers of glass ceilings,” condenses material from other sources, and DiCaro occasionally veers off topic. Still, she provides enough solid evidence to convince readers that sports media remains a bastion of male privilege.
An eye-opening and dispiriting account of biased behavior.Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4610-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
IN THE NEWS
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