There have been lots of good rants in the blogosphere about the media coverage of the Olympics. Eszter writes that the coverage is too focused on the Americans. Dan would rather cut to the quick on YouTube.
I’m getting rather steamed up about the complete silence by the perky staff on the Today Show about the fact that China is an authoritarian government that has a spotty record on human rights and lacks free elections and a free press. Instead, we getting dreamy montages of the Chinese culture and loving descriptions of the Bird Nest stadium. All that is fine. But right after they show a reporter wolfing down roasted bugs in the markets of Beijing, they should also mention that China has denied visas to athletes who have dared protest China’s position on Darfur.
Who gagged our media? Is NBC so afraid of getting kicked out of China that they happily serve up dishes of cultural puff pieces and can’t even mention that China has refused to allow its citizens to protest?
UPDATE: Megan agrees.
Apt. 11d 
“Is NBC so afraid of getting kicked out of China…?”
Yes.
Eszter’s also not quite right about Olympic coverage. One interesting thing about the week in Yerevan is that we got to sample several countries’ coverage of the Olympics. Rai Uno and Due were full of Italians doing exciting things. Russian TV was wall-to-wall Ivans and Natashas. Local coverage had lots of Armenian wrestlers and weight lifters. Can’t remember which blogger I’m lifting this line from, but folks who think US Olympic coverage is unduly self-centered need to get out more; everybody’s like that.
LikeLike
“Who gagged our media?” They gagged themselves. Here, for their profit. On Elizabeth Edwards/Rielle Hunter, for their notions of being kind to a dying woman. On Duke lacrosse, for their notions of how society generally works.
LikeLike
Eszter’s also not quite right about Olympic coverage.
No kidding. I’m shocked by the number of people who’ve tried to seem urbane by moping about how the Olympic coverage in America is too focused on Americans. It just comes off as more provincial than the practice they’re decrying. I’ve seen the Olympics coverage from three other countries (one Asian, one E. European, one W. European), and in some sense it’s even worse because when it’s not focused on the country-of-broadcast, it has an angry, anti-favorite tone.
The oddest example of this was a truly wacky NY Times piece that argued that once China starts winning the medal count by focusing on sports that hardly any countries care strongly about (America included), we’ll be required to start caring about these, otherwise we’ll be xenophobic and bad losers. I’m not going to waste my life watching pistol coverage to satisfy some astonishingly neurotic reporter’s idea of worldliness.
LikeLike
I think this self-gagging was inevitable once the Chinese were given the Olympics. That was the initial mistake. On the bright side, there’s no way that the Chinese broke even on the Olympics.
LikeLike
I just keep things like this in mind whenever anyone in the media says they’re speaking truth to power or whatever inane phrase means they’re taking on the big guys . . .
LikeLike
The gagging is why I’m boycotting the chinese olympics (all by my little lonesome self). It helps that I don’t care, anyway (though I have in the past been a rather maudlin fan of the opening ceremonies). My problem is not engagement, or even playing by their rules, but that I think the olympics are making it worse for the dissidents, not better. I don’t believe in thoughtless boycotts (Cuba comes to mind), but I think the IOC should have required “ungagging” (i.e. freedom of expression) during the olympics as a condition of their acquiescence.
LikeLike
I believe that you watch the Olympics for the sports and the show. I wish we would all observe a “politics free” Olympics. My mother always said you don’t insult someone in their own home, if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. There is much to say nice about China. While in their country there is no need to bring up the things you have an issue with. I didn’t appreciate when the Iranian leader came here to denigrate the US. It was much more insulting that he was enjoying our hospitality and showing no appreciation than when he bad mouthed us while in Iran. Let’s hope we can continue to show some courtesy on NBC while enjoying the Chinese hospitality.
LikeLike
I’m about to prove Godwin’s law here, but would that rule about not criticizing the host country apply to the 1938 Olympics?
It seems to me that the Olympics have traditionally been extremely political. Over the years, a lot of repressive governments have poured huge resources into training Olympic athletes to make some sort of ideological point, often at the expense of the well-being of the athletes themselves.
LikeLike
Amy P, there is a difference between nationalism and politics. Yes, the Olympics have always been an arena to display that ‘our country is better than your’s”. And I am totally unaware of any overt criticism of Germany during the Olympics or that criticism has altered future events in any case. I don’t think that our country would find it appropriate or helpful if the rest of the world criticized our penal system being racist or that the percent of people incarcerated is disproportionate to our population during the Olympics here. Another of my mother’s sayings was that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. We hardly come to this table with clean hands. I believe that the ‘Olympic spirit’ is that the host country is ‘neutral’ territory and that eveyone gets a chance to highlight the best of their country.
LikeLike
“I believe that the ‘Olympic spirit’ is that the host country is ‘neutral’ territory and that everyone gets a chance to highlight the best of their country.”
To quote Elie Wisel:
“And then I explained to him how naive we were, that the world did know and remain silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
Silence shouldn’t be an option to those who have our voices. Politeness does not require us to look the other way in the face of injustice.
(and, I wouldn’t for a second advocate stopping an Iranian (or Russian, or Chinese) journalist in the US from reporting his opinion of our failures).
LikeLike
I was just looking at Jesse Owens entry at Wikipedia, and it seems I botched the date. It was the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, not 1938.
“I believe that the ‘Olympic spirit’ is that the host country is ‘neutral’ territory and that eveyone gets a chance to highlight the best of their country.”
That’s the ideal, but I think we have to realize that free and un-free countries operate very differently, and un-free countries have for some reason a particular affinity with the Olympics, being particularly fond of the opportunity to “highlight the best of their country.” Free countries don’t care nearly so much about image–here in the US we may want to win, but we let it all hang out, and we have very little interest in creating the elaborate Potemkin-style facades that are the hallmark of repressive societies.
Going a step farther, I think the Olympics as an institution resonate particularly well with the aesthetic and ideals of fascistic societies. See for example Leni Riefenstahl’s really beautiful “Olympia,” or the very interesting documentary “Architecture of Doom” (which discusses the interplay between the Nazi aesthetic, its idolization of the ideal human form, and Nazi ideology). (I haven’t watched “Olympia” but I’ve seen pretty long pieces of it in “The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl,” which is fantastic.)
LikeLike
As with any friend you may have, there’s much that’s good and admirable about China as well as much that is disgraceful and weak.
If you want, you can talk about what a terrible country China is for resisting political and social liberalization while accelerating economic freedoms. Or you can talk about the rich history, the cultural achievements of a creative, brilliant people, their sense of self-worth after centuries of feeling inferior to the West.
NBC decided to focus on the good and sunny about China. Critics of China continue to press the governments around the world in their way to get China to improve. All that is good. I’m not sure why NBC has an obligation to do more than it has. Did NHK Television of Japan do enough pieces about the deep racism that poisoned the LAPD in their coverage of the 1984 games? Or did the BBC drench their coverage of the 1904 St. Louis Olympics with the shameful, bloody history of US-Native American relations or the flimsy rationale for America’s war with Spain?
China is not Nazi Germany. Nor is it even the Soviet Union of the 1980 Olympics. It’s a fascinating mix of free market capitalism, Orwellian social control, deeply conservative self-interested foreign policy, ancient Confucian sense of social order, and of course profound insecurity about its place in the world. Best as I can tell, China’s doing pretty well so far.
LikeLike
“China is not Nazi Germany. Nor is it even the Soviet Union of the 1980 Olympics. It’s a fascinating mix of free market capitalism, Orwellian social control, deeply conservative self-interested foreign policy, ancient Confucian sense of social order, and of course profound insecurity about its place in the world. Best as I can tell, China’s doing pretty well so far.”
I don’t know contemporary China, but I do have a pretty good feel for the Soviet Union around the time of the 1980 Olympics, and I think that you’re being a bit unfair to the Soviet Union of that time. In the twilight of the Soviet Union, an ordinary person would find it relatively easy to stay on the right side of the authorities. You really had to exert yourself (for instance by being a would-be emigre or a religious minority or an underground writer publishing abroad) to run afoul of the authorities. It wouldn’t happen for no reason at all, as it did in the old days. The problems that ordinary people faced were much more material privation and inconvenience rather than repression.
LikeLike
The Olympics is highly political. The opening ceremonies were celebrating the accomplishments of an authoritarian government. To sit back and drink up the propaganda without some reality checks is highly irresponsible. Last night, I watched China’s Stolen Children on HBO. (It’s on YouTube here.) Matt Lauer should be talking about the government’s forced abortions and failure to stop human trafficking. Instead, we get this. I’m feeling a little nostalgic for some old time judgment about bad governments, instead of being paid off to be silent.
LikeLike
I’ve always felt comparative analysis of injustice and repression to be futile. The key thing for me is that we (and this includes NBC) not silence ourselves when we see injustice.
from WaPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/20/AR2008082001095.html?hpid=topnews
“BEIJING, Aug. 20 — Two elderly women were sentenced to a year of “re-education through labor” after they applied for permits to demonstrate during the Olympics, according to the son of one of the would-be protesters.”
“In response to international pressure, China said it would allow protests in three parks during the Aug. 8-24 Olympic Games. Earlier this week, the official New China News Service reported that police had received 77 applications but none has been approved”
“Wang Wei, executive vice president of the Beijing Olympic organizing committee, cast the empty protest zones in a positive light, telling reporters Wednesday that the disputes brought by would-be protesters had been resolved.”
LikeLike