Vanoc Under the “Media” Microscope

Over the past two weeks, the world’s attention has been focused on 2010 Winter Olympics and its host city, Vancouver, Canada. The Canadian and international media coverage of these Olympics has been very intriguing from a critical and analytical point of view especially since the majority of the media overage, during the first week, has been quite negative. This is not surprising, given that the Games began on a tragic note with the death of Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili. Even so, coverage of the first week has been dominated by negative headlines in the Canadian media such as “Games go from teething problems to tantrums” (The Canadian Press, February 16th, 2010); “Anger as Olympic flame fenced off” (Toronto Star, February 17th, 2010); “Olympic intruder gets close to Biden” (Toronto Star, February 18th, 2010).

Even International headlines have not been kind to Vanoc. For instance, British journalist Lawrence Donegan wrote “Games could become worst in Olympic history” (British Guardian, February 16th, 2010). Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey, an editorial writer for Pravda Online (Russian Internet news agency) wrote “Canada has an utter incapacity … to host a major international event, due to its inferiority complex, born of a trauma being the skinny and weakling bro to a beefy United States and a colonial outpost to the United Kingdom….” (February 19th, 2010).

Each of these articles, and many more, cite many problems surrounding these Olympics such as technological problems, security and transportation issues, cancellation of tickets, long line ups, prices of alcohol and of course, political and weather related issues.

Reading these headlines alone, one may get the impression that the first week of these games could possibly be the ‘Worst’ in Olympic history. But before we make any judgments based on these headlines, there are a number of issues that should be highlighted that not only may impact the way we perceive these Games, but how we judge its success.

During no other Olympics in history have we had access to as many media outlets covering the events. Online streaming and digital technology have allowed us to experience any event, anytime, anywhere, as long as we have an Internet connection and a mobile interactive device such as a Blackberry or iPhone. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media networks have allowed us to interact with these games by sharing our experiences with others, especially with those who are there. This includes interaction with athletes who chose to share their experiences via Twitter and FaceBook. This interactivity has the potential to unite nations around the world and connect us in ways that I cannot even begin to fathom but, like many great things, it comes with a significant price.

As it becomes easier for people to create and communicate their own media content, the desire to share this content with as many people as possible becomes an essential component. In other words, as more people become connected in the digital universe, audience attraction intensifies.

Let us be honest. When we have something to say we want to be heard and be heard by as many people as possible. This makes the number of Facebook friends, Twitter followers, YouTube viewers and blog readers very important and essential.

However, as the digital universe becomes more and more populated, it becomes increasingly difficult to be heard. As this occurs, content begins to change and morph to make it more attractive to the eye and ear in order to attract as large an audience as possible. Consequently, the meaning of the message can change and may become superficial and full of ‘partial truths’ – messages that contain some truths but are taken out context in order to grab attention.

This type of reporting (once known as yellow journalism) has been steadily growing since the invention of the printing press and the commodification of information. The introduction of new media (radio to television to the Internet and social media) has intensified this process thus creating a media structure that relies on superficial headlines and catchy stories grounded upon partial truths.

I believe that this is what is occurring with the media coverage surrounding the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Competition is so intense between private broadcasters, journalists and bloggers that they are willing to take any incident and ‘spin’ it to grab as much attention as possible. Incidents are taken out of context and blown out of proportion for the sake of grabbing our attention; incidences normally not seen as ‘news worthy’ become ‘breaking stories’. As a result, private broadcasters, journalists and bloggers are scrutinizing every aspect of these Olympics in order to create major headlines.

I have no doubt that weather delays, machinery breakdowns and technological malfunctions have plagued every Olympics of the past but they were never significant enough to make headlines. Based on these superficialities, how could anyone criticize Vancouver for being ‘The Worst Olympic Games Ever’ given the terrorist attack during the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta or the murder of the Israeli athletes during the 1972 summer games in Munich?

There have been newsworthy events during these 2010 Vanoc games, but these Olympics are unique because of the interactivity and competitive nature of the media landscape. This has placed Vancouver and their Olympics under the “media” microscope as never before. Therefore, before we make any judgments based on the negative headlines that surround these games, let us understand the competitive nature of the media and how it works. Only by understanding the media landscape can we make rational judgments and decisions based on the information we consume.