Sports Reporting, Reporter Sex, and Perceived Credibility: After 30 Years, What Do We Know?

Perceptual biases surrounding the credibility of female sports reporters has been a robust area of research for decades, taking on many methodological forms. One vein of this research has been experimental designs where reporter sex is systematically manipulated to examine impacts on perceived credibility. Despite remarkable similarities in overall study design, findings from these studies have been mixed, variably demonstrating biases against female reporters, in favor of female reporters, or no biases at all. This paper reports results of a systematic review of this literature, highlighting differences in stimuli (e.g., medium, visual prominence of reporters), theoretical mechanisms, and measures employed in order to illuminate possible reasons for these varied findings.