Turning the pages back... Summer Olympics 1996 (09/24/00)

Turning the pages back...

Summer Olympics 1996

Four years ago, during the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, there was much comment about the quality of coverage of the Games provided by the NBC network. Now, four years later, many of those same comments still apply. In a 1996 editorial titled "NBC's Games," The Ukrainian Weekly wrote the following.

* * *

The New York Times columnist Richard Sandomir had it right when he wrote on July 23 that NBC's coverage of the Summer Olympic Games is jingoistic. "We know NBC's coverage is not fair. ... A foreign athlete rarely gets the hero treatment..." In NBC's coverage of the women's 4x100-meter swimming relay, "No mention was made of which country finished second or third, let alone the names of the swimmers. No reaction shots were shown of the silver and bronze medalists. No graphic listed the final placements and times. Jingo bells, jingo bells, partisans all the way."

Honestly, you'd think the U.S.A. is the only team seriously competing in the Olympics. Take the July 23 coverage of the women's gymnastic team finals. Yes, the U.S.A. turned in a stunning, dramatic and, in the case of Kerri Strug, heroic performance. Yes, it was a thrill to watch the "Magnificent Seven," and they surely made us Americans proud. The squad deserved to take the gold. But, where's the context? Do we honestly know, from NBC's skewed coverage, how good the American women's competition was? Viewers saw precious little of the athletes from Russia, Romania or Ukraine. If Liliya Podkopayeva of Ukraine is, as one of NBC's commentators said, one of his favorite gymnasts, then why did we see so little of this star athlete, who just happens to be the reigning world all-around champion? The athletes from Russia and Romania didn't fare any better in terms of coverage. And these were the silver and bronze medal winners!

In other sports, the story of the coverage is much the same. The athletes of other countries are shown only if they happen to be competing against the Team U.S.A. ...

Really, the TV audience deserves better. And the American public is not as jingoistic as NBC thinks we are. Let's hope NBC does justice to the Olympics in the days ahead.

Source: "NBC's Games" (editorial), The Ukrainian Weekly, July 28, 1996.

| Home Page |