The Beijing Media Story

This is my second day here in Beijing. After spending a lot of yesterday on camera, it’s a little hard to relax. So in between interviews, today I’m going to head out with the laptop and a video camera to see if I can give you an idea of what the city looks like on the eve of the opening ceremony.

But first, I wanted to tell you what I’ve seen of the media coverage so far. I’ll admit that I haven’t watched much state owned tv, as there’s only so much Olympics boosterism a person can take. Especially the music videos about the Olympics sung by Jackie Chan and Chinese pop stars - yecch. Once you start avoiding the state owned channels, though,there really isn’t much left.
Fortunately, at least in my hotel, I can still get CNN, which has been showing footage of the action at the Bird’s Nest stadium.

If possible, the print media is even worse than TV. China Daily, “the national English language newspaper,” is delivered right to my room. It’s a little like the Onion sometimes - so over the top that it SHOULD be satire, but it’s actually deadly serious. Here are a few choice headlines: “Torch overcomes all odds,” “Games provide inspiration for VW chief,” “US cyclists sorry for wearing masks,” (that one was on the front page), and my personal favorite,
“Fear of China groundless.”

By far the most interesting, though, was the Xinhua - China Daily’s page two coverage of yesterday’s action. The article accurately reports the text of the banners, even mentioning that the “free Tibet” banner as written in Chinese. The lead sentence provides a telling picture of how China views the Olympics, with the claim that activists were deported after they broke security and Olympic Games rules.”

Really? It’s against the Olympic rules for tourists to climb poles and hang banners? Somehow I doubt that, but it’s certainly true enough that the IOC has bent over backwards to accommodate China’s insistence on maintaining the right to limit freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or freedom of assembly. Thanks, IOC.