Follow-up

Since my last post (which wasn't that long ago) I have been thinking about things and thought that I should clarify a few aspects of my last post.

Firstly, to some extent I understand why major Canadian sponsoring news sources (as well as the others) are not crapping on last night's opening ceremonies. No one really gets much from such a critique, and there isn't much anyone can do about it at this point anyway.

On the other hand, to overlook some of the major flaws and to generally overemphasize the overall quality of the event is problematic. Not only does such coverage, in the face of televised flubs, raise questions about the reliability of media coverage (of this and other events) it also encourages others to highlight what they perceive to have been missed by the major media sources (aspects which were quite obvious in this case).

I imagine that part of the problem is that this is seen as a sporting event and an investment rather than real news. So instead of treating the coverage as though they are covering a real news event media outlets are instead acting as event boosters. This is probably in part because these media outlets paid so much to cover the event and they need to ensure that they don't turn away viewers (thus loosing the opportunity re-coup their initial investment and turn a profit). In some ways this highlights a fundamental conflict when news outlets cover events that they have paid to cover (and is probably why many of the more reputable media outlets don't like to pay for interviews/leads/exclusives). No only do we loose all pretense of those covering the event being unbiased news sources, we aren't even exposed to some of the more flawed aspects of the events.

Obviously, this picture is not perfectly clear as a number of media sources have been covering the snow problems and cost overruns (as well as a number of other problems) that VANOC experienced in the run-up to these games, but I do think that it is likely a pretty fair representation of overall coverage and explanation of media behaviour.

Blog-off Score

Neil:0
Cameron: 24