Post-Schna-ulations

Olympic Commentary

I did not get to watch as much of the Olympics this year as I would have liked, but from what I saw of the coverage from NBC, that might be a good thing. The NBC reporters covering the Olympics crossed the line from terrible into extremely inappropriate and insensitive. Some notable examples (and this is just from the little I watched) included:
- Reporter asking a US male runner (sorry, can't remember which one and I don't want to guess and be wrong)after he came in 5th in a qualifying round (4th and up passed to the next level), something to the effect of; "So, you were running in honor of your murdered father. How does it feel to know that you aren't going on in this race?"
- Reporter asking 16-year-old Carly Patterson of the US women's gymnastics team something to the effect of, "How does it feel to know that you made such a big mistake?" (Alluding to a mistake Patterson made in the all-arounds that led to her team winning the silver instead of the gold).
- NBC camermen following GB's Radcliffe (competitor in the women's marathon) behind a bush where she was trying to GET AWAY from the media after dropping out of the marathon around mile 20.

These are specific instances that I know of, and there were more that I can't remember now. Overall, I think NBC reporters during this Olympics coverage embodied all of the negative stereotypes about the media. They were rude, invasive, inappropriate, insensitive, and totally lacked respect for the athletes.

Oh, and on another Olympics side note, just to make my feelings known, if Paul Hamm doesn't give up (if he hasn't already) the gold medal after the scoring fiasco, then he's an asshole too.

posted by Schna @ 8:04 AM