What Cable Political and Olympic Broadcasting Have In Common: Not Telling The Complete Story
Arthur Solomon
Viewers of cable TV news channels should look elsewhere to get unbiased political news. That’s because the channels, in order to attract and keep viewers, slant their news to attract an audience that agrees with their content.
Viewers of sports events on television have a similar problem. Too often the game day announcers and analysts root for their teams because of their closeness with the players and because the team management either employs them or has a veto over whom they will be.
In most cases being a “homer” is a big “so what.” It doesn’t really matter if game day play-by-play announcers and their analysts don’t play it down the middle. The calls by these “homers” do not affect the outcome of a game. And all too frequent exaggerations of the “great” completed pass to a wide receiver or an “impossible catch” in baseball has long been an excepted part of sports announcing.
The problem is when the “homers” are the broadcasters announcing the Olympic Games held in totalitarian countries that use the games as a political propaganda vehicle.
The most recent totalitarian countries to play host to at least some of “the world’s best athletes” is China. But the Asian totalitarian country is not the only of its ilk to “welcome the world.” Previous oppressive countries that were awarded the propaganda vehicle by the IOC were Berlin (Summer Games) and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany (Winter Games) in 1936; Mexico City in 1968; Moscow in 1980; Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, in 1984; Beijing, China in 2008 (Summer Games and 2022 (Winter Games) and Sochi, Russia, in 2014.
During the years leading up to the Olympics in Beijing, NBCUniversal, which telecast the games in the U.S., largely remained quiet about calls by Congressional leaders and human rights organizations for the games to be taken away from China or boycotted because of its undemocratic regime.
Unlike their print counterparts, little was said by Olympic commentators about autocratic governments of totalitarian host countries, past and present. Instead of reporting about the undemocratic aspects that deprived citizens of those countries the freedom of expression, or worse, prior to the restriction necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic, features described the countries as the perfect place for a summer or winter vacation.
Despite the protests of a large segment of the Japanese population and medical scientists urging that Tokyo 2020, the Olympics games played in 2021, be postponed or canceled because of Covid-19, the International Olympic Committee decided that the games must go on. That was no surprise to people who know Olympic history. The IOC believes their show must always go on, regardless of public sentiment or the political actions of autocratic governments.
The most abhorrent example is the “Deutschland uber alles” Nazi Olympics in 1936, when the IOC refused to cancel its games awarded to Germany even though it was open knowledge about concentration champs and laws that abolished the rights of Jewish Germans. But history shows that the Nazi Olympics is not the only time that the IOC thought that sports were more important than people suffering under a repressive regime.
In past Olympics that were played in totalitarian countries, American networks broadcasting the games, when not televising sporting events, acted as public relations arms of the host country. None sports competition commentary were mainly about heroic stories of individual athletes, soap opera -like tales of athletes overcoming tough times or as a travel documentary, always playing up the friendliness of the people and culture of the country, but omitting criticism of the oppressive governments, because the IOC and its sponsoring partners want to portray the Olympics as the world's party, when in reality it is often played in countries that are the world's tragedies.
On July 27, 2021, representatives from Airbnb, Coca-Cola, Intel, Procter & Gamble and Visa, all major sponsors of the Beijing Olympics, told a United States’ Congressional-Executive Commission, critical of holding the Olympics in China because of its human rights policies, that they have no say over where the IOC stages its games. That they only follow the athletes.
Of course those are hypocritical statements. Sponsors money helps fuel the athletes and the IOC.
At least NBC is honest about its partnership with the IOC. They admit that they make a lot of money by televising the games. And saying that they just follow the athletes would be laughed at: The IOC derives 73% of its income from selling broadcast rights. NBC alone is the source of about 40% of all IOC income.
The 2022 Winter Olympic Games will long be remembered, but not for the feats of athletes. Instead it will rank with the two most notorious Olympics of all time – the 1936 games in Germany, known in history as the Nazi Olympics, and the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany, during which 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were killed by Palestinian terrorists.
About the Author: Arthur Solomon, a former journalist, was a senior VP/senior counselor at Burson-Marsteller, and was responsible for restructuring, managing and playing key roles in significant national and international sports and non-sports programs. He now is a frequent contributor to public relations publications, consults on public relations projects and was on the Seoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at arthursolomon4pr@juno.com.
