I thought great moments of female athletic prowess belonged to the individual women involved. But the Huffington Post reports that media outlets are covering the Rio Olympics in a way that suggests otherwise.
The HuffPo notes that NBC sportscaster Dan Hicks set off a Twitterstorm when he said Hungarian swimmer Katinka Hosszu’s husband and coach, Shane Tusup, was “the man responsible” for her world-record-setting gold medal win in the 400-meter individual medley. Hicks later told the Associated Press that Hosszu herself credits Tusup for her confidence, but added: “with live TV, there are often times you look back and wished you had said things differently.”
Nevertheless, the incident reminded me of the recent coverage of the DNC. As Fortune‘s Kristen Bellstrom reported, newspapers including the Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post marked Hillary Clinton’s historic nomination as the first woman to lead a major American political party by putting a photo of Bill Clinton on the front page.
So, as HuffPo suggests, the Tribune should have come up with a better headline than, “Corey Cogdell, wife of Bears lineman Mitch Unrein, wins bronze,” to announce her accomplishment in women’s trap shooting. When a woman does something noteworthy, she deserves the credit—let’s leave her husband out of it.