Ed Werder takes heat after tweet about men in sports journalism

Ed Werder became the center of a Twitter controversy on Monday after he boldly stood up for the dying breed of male sports writers.

Werder, who was a well known reporter for ESPN for nearly 20 years until losing his job last year, took offense to a tweet from a female Sports Illustrated writer.

SI advertised on Twitter Monday that they were looking for a new entry-level writer.

Sports Illustrated is hiring an entry-level breaking news writer based in NYC. Come join our team: https://t.co/UOlFMefXuc

— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) June 18, 2018

Charlotte Wilder, who is a senior writer at SI, encouraged any interested females to reach out to her about the position.

If you can stand sitting near me in the office this is a v cool opportunity. Especially if you're a woman trying to get into sports, you should message me — DMs are open https://t.co/CI6uyFQAKV

— Charlotte Wilder (@TheWilderThings) June 18, 2018

That tweet did not sit well with Werder, who offered the following response:

So men need not apply? Any others ineligible? https://t.co/GwcCrFtmak

— Ed Werder (@EdwerderRFA) June 18, 2018

Perhaps Werder is feeling marginalized since being let go and that could explain his reaction to Wilder’s tweet, but his tweet led to plenty of backlash.

Here are some examples of responses:

@TheWilderThings encouraging women to apply for a position isn't the same thing as "excluding" men. it's helping female applicants network, which can be a challenge given the massive gender imbalance in our industry (which I'm sure you know exists).

— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) June 18, 2018

Ed Werder sticking up for the hopeless demographic that makes up 90% of the industry. Heroic af. https://t.co/vKBrqQMZqw

— AT (@primediscussion) June 18, 2018

Last internship cycle I received 175+ applications. Only 3 of them were from women—THREE! They didn't get the job because they accepted another opportunity or weren't as qualified as other candidates, but they had to compete against 172 men—and you think Ed Werder's ratio is bad.

— Karisa Maxwell (@KarisaMaxwell) June 18, 2018

It seems like you are reading “Exclusively” where the message says “Especially”.

— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) June 18, 2018

Congrats to Ed Werder on becoming the first person to look at the sports media landscape and think, "Not enough white men"

— Scott McLaughlin (@smclaughlin9) June 18, 2018

Ed Werder's tweets about men being discriminated against in sportswriting show that he either 1) doesn't have female friends in the industry 2) doesn't listen to their perspectives on their own experiences 3) they don't even bother sharing them with him.

— Lindsey Adler (@lindseyadler) June 18, 2018

So what prompted Werder’s response? He explained.

Because next week I’m going to be standing in front of a broadcasting class of young people and some will be males and I have to tell them they have the same chance at jobs like those one as all others. https://t.co/XYAvjmRrij

— Ed Werder (@EdwerderRFA) June 18, 2018