NBC's Pathetic Praising of China

I apologize if another thread is covering this but it seemed like it should be separate from the general Olympic thread.

In a thread below, there is a discussion of how nice it is to see Sally Jenkins take it to the Chinese a bit. NBC, however, would never say a bad word about China. The feature tonight by Mary Cirillo where they praised the train to Tibet and the Three Gorges Dam without a single mention that the dam is an ecological disaster and the train to Tibet has been widely criticized as a ploy to further oppress Tibet. Now, I don't think NBC should beat on China every second, but you can't just have features that boil down to "Those crazy Chinese sure do build some nifty stuff!"

NBC's coverage is pathetic and an absolute embarrassment.

 

were you actually expecting something else?

 

typically am not around to see the nightly news, so kudos to them there. but can see where mnm is coming from when just talking about the olympic broadcast itself.

 

Disagree, too. NBC has put together some "shame on you, China" segments where they've focused on the growing problem with pollution, especially. Yet, what do you expect? This is obviously a foreign country to the United States, one, in fact, that we don't see too often; and for the time being, they have their moment in the spotlight.

 

Did you see Costas' interview of Bush last night? He wasn't asking questions about how delicious the food is.

 

No matter what network covers the Olys they're gonna be bashed, it's the most popular sport at the Games. But NBC's work has never been better. The features are kept to 3 minutes or less and are usually about something interesting rather than some hardship the athlete has overcome.
They are incorporating the travelogue features within the commercial breaks (brilliant), and they're pretty honest. I laughed when I heard about the "scoop" that the footprint fireworks shown before the Opening Ceremony were really fake. Costas and Lauer said so on Friday. And now, there is so much more coverage to criticize. I'm really digging the NBC website.

 

The Olympics are entertainment, the news is news.
If you think NBC is going to show an entertainment feature that bashes its product, you're nuts.

 

In general, you're right. However, making beaver jokes (no, not that kind of beaver jokes) about a project that displaced thousands (if not millions) of people did seem a little crass.

 

I'll say this about NBC, I'm grateful we're not seeing stars of NBC shows taking in the various events. But I do wish they wouldn't focus so much on well-known athletes. Do I really need to see another beach volleyball match with Misty May and Kerri Walsh? Or another tennis match with Federer, Nadal or the Williams sisters?
You'd think they'd find one or two "great stories of the day" to recap during the prime time coverage regardless of whether it involves a US athlete or a high profile sport.
And the post-event interviews are already getting tedious. I like Andrea Kremer on football but she's out of her element by the pool.

 

I'm the same. I don't give a shit about the Nightly News. I've watched it probably seven times in my lifetime. EVERYBODY is watching the Olympics. If you want to really report something, do it during an Olympic telecast. To wait until Nightly News is to be a complete vagina about it.

However, I'm still waiting for NBC or some other media entity to make the point that China's industrial development is about 150 years behind the United States and most of Europe. Essentially, to rip China for its polution is like going back in time and blasting 1850s Americans for the damage they're doing to the environment. You're no less right, but you can't expect a nation to accelerate that quickly. China is having its Industrial Revolution right now. Eventually, China will start doing really well economically, then China's version of a liberal crowd* will (rightly) bitch that people are being taken advantage of, slowly it will become a welfare state and eventually the economy will collapse. Just be patient.

* I realize China is Communist, but it's only kind of Communist.

 

Would you rather I not use the word, "vagina"?

 

Yes.