Anna Kessel MBE, one of the UK’s leading football journalists is coming to Cardiff to give the Keynote Lecture as part of a one day “Women in Sports Journalism” conference being organised by NUJ Training Wales, Chwarae Teg and Cardiff Met University.

Football journalism was once a male dominated field but the industry is rapidly changing and journalists like Anna Kessel, a vocal campaigner for gender equality in sport, have led the way. Kessel, who writes for the Observer and Guardian, co-founded the Women in Football Organisation and received her MBE for services to journalism and women in sport.

Cerys Furlong, CEO of Chwarae Teg is launching the event which will feature three panels on the day, one with a focus on print journalism in the morning and another concentrating on broadcast journalism (TV and Radio) in the afternoon, not forgetting the main event – a keynote speech from Anna Kessel MBE (Observer Sports Journalist).

Richard Speight from NUJ Training Wales says:

“Our aim on the day is to bring together sports journalism students, working journalists, presenters, reporters, commissioners, editors, trade unionists, athletes, sports coaches, press officers and academics to examine the advances that women have taken within the sports media industry in recent years, as well as the challenges still to be overcome by those building their careers in what is still a male-dominated sports media. It will be an opportunity for everyone involved to build their knowledge and skills in this area as well as gain new contacts and insights”

Former BBC and Sky Sports producer Joe Towns is now running the Sport Broadcast MSc at Cardiff Met and thinks the conference can offer a great forum to cover a wide range of issues facing the industry

“We’re excited about the big names on our panels – established presenters like Dot Davies and Carolyn Hitt, young reporters like Beth Fisher, new pundits like Nia Jones, academics like Julie Kissick and of course high profile football writers like Anna Kessel. As well as decision makers and senior editors like the S4C Head of Sport Sue Butler and Wales Online Editor Catrin Pascoe. We want the panels to discuss how we can take the coverage of women’s sport to the next level, we want to talk about the gender pay gap is still prevalent in the media industry, we want to examine why some sports are given more coverage than others and how women’s sports organisations can do more to increase their own coverage and exposure. We want to look at the rise of female football pundits and how we can go about creating a new generation of female sports broadcasters, presenters, writers and commentators. We also want to explore the issue around the lack of women in production roles, be they technical or editorial”

The event will also host a short student panel looking at the issues, obstacles and opportunities for female graduates trying to break in to sport broadcast and sports journalism today.

Tickets for the conference are available on the link below:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/women-in-sports-journalism-tickets-47511385834