Dr. Michael Mirer
Assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His research focuses on sports journalism, in-house media, and evolving standards of journalistic professionalism. The sport he rediscovers every four years is Team Handball.
Email: mirer@uwm.edu
Bluesky: @michaelmirer.bsky.social
Twitter/X CEO Elon Musk famously backed out of a bout with Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. The combat in JK Rowling’s books involved the waving of wands rather than the throwing of hands. So maybe neither knows much about boxing. Both are, however, self-certified experts in transphobia. So, when Algerian fighter Imane Khelif landed a punch that caused Italy’s Angela Carini to tap out after 46 seconds of their Olympic bout, Musk and Rowling failed recognize this as the object of a boxing match and instead took to social media to spread baseless claims about Khelif’s gender.
In the initial analysis, two billionaires posting from in front of their televisions drove an attention cycle that overshadowed some of the Games and will extend beyond the closing ceremonies. This cycle saw the Boston Globe retracting headlines that parroted the Musk/Rowling axis’ claims about Khelif’s gender, included a bizarre press conference from a sports-sanctioning body so corrupt that not even the IOC will do business it, and served as basis for legal claims filed by Khelif in France.
The phrase “attention cycle” rather than “news cycle” above is purposeful because actual news in this dust-up was negligible. And while other experts in this volume will discuss the intersection of gender and sports, this story also offered a window into how the sports media has frayed over the last three years and what means for those who are involved in the Olympics.
First, this should further complicate the ways we look at social media as a tool or resistance. We have decades of sports media scholarship, for instance, that illustrates how hegemonic the sporting press can be, by marginalizing activist athletes, reinforcing exclusionary national identities, or driving stereotypes. Social media appeared to alter this dynamic. Athletes had the opportunity to defend themselves against others who previously had the last word. Activists could bring ideas directly to their fans and defend themselves against criticism. That positive, and it is an improvement, needs to be balanced against the harms that exist in this space as well. Athletes and sports journalists (especially women in the field) say they face sometimes merciless trolling from fans or disappointed bettors. In the Khelif story, an athlete in a minor sport without much sponsorship faced an onslaught led by two of the richest people on earth. She appears to have held up against it, at least long enough to win a gold medal. Not everyone would. No one should have to.
It also shows the degradation of the sports-media environment. The transphobic hypothesizing against Khelif occurred in something of an information vacuum, which may have perpetuated this attention cycle. Someone hearing about this controversy would have had a difficult time finding basic statistical information about the two fighters. Moreover the near absence of sports-specific boxing media to fill in blanks meant audiences had loud voices on social media and little else to guide them through this story. The IOC credentials sport-specific journalists as a separate category within the press pack. Those voices seemed largely absent as journalists in Paris struggled to explain the various machinations in this story. While the IOC made it clear the International Boxing Association was no longer affiliated with it on Page 4 of its media guide, those points showed up on the second and third days of the cycle. The lack of independent expertise leaves audiences adrift with only their preexisting prejudices to guide them. That is not good for athletes or anyone else. Does the IOC have a responsibility to its athletes to create a better information environment around its minor sports? Might it mean an investment in in-house reporting on the IOC’s platforms? It could look many ways, but it is an important conversation.
Of course, the presence of information might not have helped. There have been excellent treatments of gender controversies in the Olympics, most recently Rose Eveleth’s podcast series “Tested.” But for the most part, sports journalists have not equipped themselves to write about gender or, really, to understand how they were played by people like Musk and Rowling, who have defined their public identities in opposition to trans life. Their claims ended up reported as allegations rather than nonsense because of their wealth and clout rather than any access to information or insight. Moreover, the entire situation enlists athletes into framing trans people negatively. A few keystrokes from a few high-profile transphobes drove headlines, which includes people issuing denials or defending themselves against allegations. Sports journalists have been traditionally committed to gatekeeping their professional domains, but this was a total abdication. Truth is not going to protect itself.
For all the potential harm enacted in this particular story, it also offers a learning moment to understand how a sports media system that is consistently being rewired digested this controversy. Everyone can do better.
