Echoes of Olympia

Just as the Olympics strives to display the forefront of the world’s athletic development, it’s also quite illuminating to take a look at the Games in terms of strides made in media and communications. The Olympics is one of the most-watched sporting events in the world, second only to the FIFA World Cup (and that record will certainly be challenged, if not utterly demolished, by the Beijing Games).

The coverage of sporting events tends to have different priorities than other entertainment media; aesthetic concerns often take a backseat to clarity (Leni Reifenstahl and NFL Films notwithstanding). So like a genre television show, the emphasis is on form, not content. And what can we say about the form of Olympic coverage?

Nobody to Blame

Many are surprised by the Chinese government’s open response to the quake disaster. They laud the government for having what seems to be an almost miraculous reversal of policy compared to other natural disasters—in 1976, the Chinese tried to suppress news of the Tangshan earthquake that killed 240,000 people. It covered up the Yellow River floods of the last decade, the SARS epidemic of several years ago, and the railway crash of this year. With nonstop news broadcasts, unlimited access (so far) for journalists both foreign and domestic, this seems like the herald of a new age of news freedom and the first step in greater openness and accountability. You couldn’t be more wrong.

For the People

During the April 9 broadcast of the CNN news program The Situation Room, commentator Jack Cafferty was asked about the relationship between the United States and China. He replied:
Well, I don’t know if China is any different, but—our relationship with China is certainly different. We’re in hock to the Chinese up to our eyeballs because of the war in Iraq, for one thing. They’re holding hundreds of billions of dollars worth of our paper. We also are running hundred of billions of dollars worth of trade deficits with them, as we continue to import their junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet food and export, you know, jobs to places where you can pay workers a dollar a month to turn out the stuff that we’re buying from Wal-Mart. So I think our relationship with China has certainly changed. I think they’re basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years…

Hypocrisy and Face: An Open Letter

The China-Tibet Olympics commotion depresses.

We all knew CCTV was a joke. Now we are disappointed to learn that the BBC has a political agenda as well, joining what Mick Hume of The Times calls the newest Olympic sport—”China bashing.” No Pulitzers for this mess. CNN will win the gold medal in “China bashing” for mislabeling Nepalese crackdown pictures as Chinese (the single most effective Chinese propaganda tool in years—good job CNN!); the BBC will have to settle for the silver for their coverage of the London Olympic relay.