ESPN SportsCenter anchor Hannah Storm has been doing national media since joining CNN Sports Night in 1989. Of course, there was no social media at the time, but even then, she says she received hate mail from viewers who were not happy to see a woman in such a prominent role.
Storm visited The Doug Gottlieb Show on Thursday to discuss several topics, including her encounters with online haters and how she deals with criticism.
“My first national job was on CNN, and I got hate mail on the regular, including one guy who said I wasn’t pronouncing Notre Dame right,” Storm, a 1983 Notre Dame graduate, said.
Gottlieb pointed out he’s faced his own share of critics on social media, but he realizes that women in sports media are unfairly held to a higher standard based on not just what they say but how they dress.
And some just hate the idea of women doing anything in sports media. Storm recalled when she was first informed she would be calling play-by-play for Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video in 2018. She and analyst Andrea Kremer became the first all-female broadcast team for an NFL game, and they handled those duties for four years.
“Adam Schefter tweeted it out, and literally over half the reaction was super negative, ‘Stay in the kitchen where you belong’ kind of stuff,” Storm said.
How does she deal with that type of abuse?
“In a way, you become a little desensitized to it. You can’t let it control you in any way,” Storm said. “I’ve really gone off X, I just don’t really use it that much anymore. … The negative stuff, I’m just like, ‘That’s a you problem.’
“You’ve got to be careful, you really do. People are nasty, they’re looking for the negative. It’s really sad.”
Storm, 62, thinks the fact she started her career before social media came along has helped her ignore online critics.
“I think maybe I have the luxury having not grown up around social media. Even though I’ve always gotten backlash in a lot of ways, maybe it just made me pretty tough, I guess.”
On the other hand, she thinks the criticism can be “freeing” in a way.
“At the same time, like when I was doing Thursday Night Football and I realized there were people who just hated the idea of me doing it. So it was kind of freeing. ‘Cause I was like, ‘I could do the greatest job ever and they wouldn’t care. Or I could screw up.’ … So let me just do my best.”
Gottlieb praised Storm for her perpetually sunny attitude full of “positive energy.”
“It’s just an interesting way in which you’re able to process (the criticism), compartmentalize it, and still be you,” Gottlieb said.
“You’ve got to love what you do,” Storm said. “I guess I’ve had so many obstacles thrown in my way, people telling me you can’t do this, or ‘I’ll hire a woman over my dead body.’ … Forever. My entire career. And so then, that just kind of makes me really more stubborn. ‘Oh really? OK, let’s go.'”
