SHE’S NOT THE FIRST ONE to draw a parallel between the TSN newsroom and a locker room.
But Jennifer Hedger is one of a select number of women who thrive in that atmosphere. In fact, the locker room environment is one of the big reasons she loves her job. No “girly girls” there, she says, adding she’s happy to be treated as one of the guys.
For ages, guys were all viewers ever saw on sports TV, and men still make up the vast majority of sports on-air talent, producers and directors. But women like Hedger are changing the broadcast game a little, even if she does call herself a “chick”.
She, along with fellow TSN anchor Holly Horton, skating analyst Tracy Wilson, director of production Patricia Sidoli, Sportscentre producer Sofie Kouleas, and vice-president of programming and production Rick Chisholm will comprise a panel discussion on careers for women in sports broadcasting tonight at the National Film Board, sponsored by TSN and Women in Film and Television Toronto (WIFT-T)
With that session in mind, www.cartt.ca talked to Hedger last week to find out how she got into the business, the obstacles she faced and what her advice is for women wanting into sports broa
dcasting.
What follows is an edited transcript of editor and publisher Greg O’Brien’s chat with Jennifer Hedger (right) last week.
Greg O’Brien: You’ve been in the 10 o’clock Sportscentre slot now since January, correct?
Jennifer Hedger: Yes.
GOB: Any surprises since your move from middle of the night to prime time?
JH: I’ve got my life back somewhat. That’s been a pleasant surprise. I think it goes without saying the hours are certainly a lot nicer being home by 12:30 rather than 3:30 in the morning.
It’s a different show to host though. You have to be on your toes because the games are still in progress and you get stuff thrown at you so as the show goes on we’re dropping things and adding things, whereas the late show, the games are over, you’ve been able to read your packs and you know what the show is going to look like. Now, when we go on air a lot of times, the show we put to air is a lot different than the one we thought we were going to do.
GOB: That’s certainly been happening recently with the NBA finals.
JH: Especially with the games out west where some don’t start until 9:30 at night and if we’re going at 10, we’re constantly updating it as we go along. And that’s what makes it fun. That’s why we love live TV – the element of surprise.
GOB: What’s the difference working with Darren Dutchyshen (at 10 p.m.) rather than Jay Onrait (at 2 a.m.)?
JH: Gosh, there are so many. Onrait and I did that two o’clock show for almost two years so we really knew each other and got in a groove. It takes a lot of time to build up a rapport with someone, to get to know their timing and what their sense of humor is like so it certainly was an adjustment going from Jay to Dutch because they’re two different guys. Dutch is just so full of energy, loves doing the show and he’s a larger than life guy, so I had to find where I fit in with him, which is a different place where I fit with Jay.
It has been an adjustment, but they’re both a riot. You just have to watch them to know that.
GOB: Darren has been there a long time, he’s sort of the alpha-male.
JH: He’s been there for almost 10 years now and to his credit, he’s been awesome. It would have been pretty easy for him to say “oh god, I’ve got to host with a chick. I’ve never hosted with a chick before and this is going to be a nightmare,” but he really had a good attitude about it and made the transition a lot easier for me than it could have been. He’s a great partner and he makes me look good and hopefully I can help him out doing the same.
GOB: How long have you been in broadcasting?
JH: In my last semester of University (Western) I started working at Rogers (Cable, volunteering for their community channel in London, Ont.) and hosted a show there and did some stuff for the London Knights. That’s how I broke in – I couldn’t call it a job because you don’t get paid at Rogers, but it was amazing experience.
I went from there to The New PL in London – a summer gig there shooting promos – and I started filling in for their morning show and their noon hour program. I was sort of plugging holes and there was nothing concrete coming out of it so I started firing tapes off and actually was offered a job as entertainment reporter for A-Channel in Winnipeg. I was auditioning for (Canadian reality series) The Lofters at the same time and they both called on the same day to say “all right, we’ll take a chance on you.”
I ended up choosing The Lofters because, I think it was 18-grand a year to go to Winnipeg as entertainment reporter and it was $30,000 to go to Toronto and live rent-free on TV and do hundreds and hundreds of hours of live TV. The reason I did the Lofters is that we were going to be hosting shows both on the Life Network and on the Internet – so much experience with guests and interviews and just being able to have a show. It was the best schooling I could ever have. Now unfortunately, it had to play out on national television but that was part of the deal.
From there I went on Off The Record and met Michael Landsberg and he saw that I new my sports and asked me what I wanted to do when I got out of the Loft and I said I really want to work for TSN.
He said, if you’re serious, I’ll get you an interview at least, and the ball started rolling from there. It was a pretty long process. There were months of auditioning and interviewing and TSN was trying to find out where I might fit and I was trying to convince them I would fit anywhere.
GOB: Why choose sports and not politics or news or entertainment, like you mentioned.
JH: I love it the most. Sports has been my life growing up. I was always on a team and my dad really instilled sports into me and my brother. We played them our whole lives and we used to go to (Detroit) Tigers games when we were kids. We used to watch the London Majors baseball team. It was just a huge part of growing up for me and I loved it.
But, I wasn’t going to be playing in the WNBA any time soon, so I had to figure out how I could make sports as part of my career and broadcasting was the best fit.
GOB: Now that you have a few years under your belt (she joined TSN in 2002), what do you tell other young women looking to get into sports broadcasting?
JH: I tell them that the jobs are there. I don’t think it’s like it was 20 years ago when being a woman was a hindrance or a handicap in getting into the field of sports. Television and newspapers and radio stations want women in their sports department.
The only caveat to that is you have to be good. No one is going to get a job, male or female, if you don’t know your stuff. But if you do, there are lots of jobs out there. If you look at our network, Holly’s there and I’m there and we’ve had Lisa Hillary and Lisa Bowes and if you’re willing to work hard enough and you know your stuff then you’ll be all right.
GOB: Part of the criticism when you were hired was the “just another pretty face” line I’m sure you saw. Is that something you had to work to overcome?
JH: Definitely. But, that’s all part of it. I think as a woman if you go into sports or into a male dominated field and think it’s going to be easy or that people are automatically going to give you the benefit of the doubt, I mean, no way. I think it’s still human nature to see a young woman in sports and automatically assume she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
But, you have to prove that you do. You have to win people over and that isn’t going to happen overnight or in one broadcast, it takes a long time. But that’s the way it is. It’s not impossible to win an audience over, you just have to persevere and put in the hard work to do it.
GOB: Have you ever felt any of the male backlash you sometimes hear about when it comes to women in sports broadcasting?
JH: I haven’t felt that. I work at TSN where people believe in me and they wouldn’t have me do the job I do if they didn’t think I could do it. The people I work with every day – the producers and directors and all those people – want me to do a good job.
GOB: When it comes right down to it, Sportscentre is a multi-million-dollar property and they’re not going to put some idiot behind the desk.
JH: If I look bad then the network looks bad. I haven’t felt that at all. That’s not to say it isn’t out there and I suppose if I was in a different market, maybe down in the States or (working as a reporter) in locker rooms, it might be different, but I honestly can’t say I’ve ever felt like people didn’t want me to be there or that I didn’t belong.
GOB: I’ve spent some time in the TSN newsroom and it’s 90% guys I figure. Is it easy for you to fit into that dynamic?
JH: It’s easy for me and I think it’s easy for all the women that work there because we’re the girls that grew up playing sports with the boys. We’re the girls who were on the boys baseball teams because there weren’t enough girls. We grew up in locker rooms playing hockey and I can only speak for myself, but I love that atmosphere and that mentality and I like being treated like one of the guys.
You learn a lot about men in that newsroom so I think TSN and the sports field in general attracts women who are attracted to that atmosphere. There aren’t a lot of girly-girls in there and everyone has a pretty thick skin. We like the testosterone and the camaraderie and part of the appeal is to work in an environment that is like that.
GOB: One of the other issues that crops up from time to time is the whole “sports versus entertainment” argument, where people ask “are you a journalist or are you an entertainer… and I think that rolls into how some women sportscasters have chosen to appear in MAXIM magazine, for example, or other places. Is that something that you would ever do?
JH: That’s a personal decision from woman to woman or man to man. For myself, I don’t think that it would be right for me – not where my career is now. I don’t know how that would benefit me at all… I just don’t think it would be for me. But, that’s just my opinion. Not that I think that it’s good or bad or that somebody else shouldn’t do it, it’s not just an avenue that I would take.
GOB: But, getting back to the question of sports as journalism or entertainment. Is it both? Is there a line?
JH: I would never call myself a journalist. I’m not out in the field getting stories together. I’m a presenter, a commentator, a broadcaster. We’re sports broadcasters – I wouldn’t say that we’re just entertainers because if we were then comedians could do the job.
There’s obviously a basis of knowledge that all of the broadcasters on TSN have that the average entertainer doesn’t. I think that it is our job to present the news in an entertaining way – but that doesn’t mean that we have to make people laugh all the time,. A good broadcaster entertains her audience and informs them as opposed to just telling them the scores as they fall asleep on their couch.
GOB: Miss hockey?
JH: Yeah, I do. I don’t miss it, I guess, the way a fan misses it. I don’t find myself on Saturday nights wishing I was watching a hockey game but as far as our job goes, it’s been tough this year not having hockey to broadcast. That’s what Canadians love to watch and those are the highlights we love to present and it’s filled up a lot of our airwaves. We’ve had lots of things to fill it with but it’s not the same.
Usually we’d be hanging on the playoffs right now and be deep into it but it didn’t happen this year and maybe it won’t happen next year but we move on. There are plenty of other things to cover.
