Beijing Olympics

After Chinese officials canceled Saturday and Sunday’s daily press conferences with foreign media, people began to wonder why. Could the country be dodging questions about media rights and the occasional cameraman beatdown?

Not according to Beijing Olympics spokesperson Sun Weide, who said that since the Games were running smoothly (especially for NBC), there was no need for daily briefings. “We are always ready to take questions and we are always available at the news desk (in the Olympic media centre) or by telephone,” he told the AFP.

The International Olympic Committee repeated the company line. Giselle Davies, the organization’s spokeswoman, didn’t think difficult questions from the foreign media had anything to do with the cancellations, saying, “That’s part of the job and the questions are tough at all Games, just their content is different.”

For the first time this week (based on our totally unscientific survey, anyway) the Olympics are not dominating the homepage of the NYT. No doubt a temporary condition since Michael Phelps is set to go for his final gold sometime in the next hour. Still, a nice relief, even if the main story is about methadone.

Hey, a questionable timing decision at the Olympics that has nothing to do with NBC! So, by now everyone has heard about Michael Phelps‘s one one-hundredth of a second victory over Milorad Cavic in last night’s (or this morning’s) 100 meter butterfly (it was soclose the Serbs filed an immediate protest). But you may not have seen it, since to the naked eye one one-hundredth of a second is nearly imperceptible — even the NBC announcer conceded that it appeared that Cavic had won. Well, turns out the Times graphics editor Joe Ward was hoping to take a closer look and went to the Omega Pavilion (Omega is the official timekeeper of the Games) immediately following the race to get an underwater pic of the finish. Ha. IOC/FINA craziness ensues.

When Joe returned to our office, he received an e-mail message from the spokeswoman. “Sorry but FINA decided not to release any timekeeping images to the media…We are not going to distribute footage. We are not doing these kinds of things. Everything is good. What are you going to do with the footage? See what the Serbians already saw? It is clarified for us beyond any doubt…He’s the winner in any way. He’s the winner no doubt. Even if you could see the pictures, I don’t know how you could use them.

Way to stand behind your work! How soon do you think till those pics show up on eBay? In the meantime, conspiracy theorists have at it.

Well that didn’t take long. At 10:30 a.m. EST Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt broke the world record in the 100 meters, running the distance in an insane 9.69 seconds (without even really trying). NBC won’t broadcast the race until prime-time tonight, but you can see it now on YouTube. The screenshot above, taken at 10:45 a.m. EST, shows the race had been uploaded 13 minutes before, less than two minutes after the race went final.

(The result is also on the front page ESPN.com.)

Jeff Zucker, Portfolio cover boy, and president & CEO of NBC Universal — also known as the company scurrying furiously around trying to keep any shred of Olympic video from appearing anywhere but on its site — was on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” today, basking in the glory of the gazillion dollars NBC is set to make from the Beijing Games (as though this is a sign of the strength of network television and not one last hurrah before it sinks itself into the ocean with its antiquated thinking…we’re still a bit miffed about the opening ceremonies, by the way). Here’s some of what he had to say about NBC’s “tremendous” Olympic coverage.

There’s no question we did the right thing in holding the Opening Ceremony to air in prime time on NBC that night. The excitement that built out of word of mouth that the opening ceremony was the most spectacular thing that people had seen, that China wanted to make a statement and they made a statement and people wanted to see that. I think what’s been great we’ve been able to bottle that excitement since the opening ceremony and I think the team has captured that in every day since.

But one of the great things to come out of these Olympic Games is that the tremendous use of our digital properties online and the great viewership online and the tremendous number of page views is really teaching us a tremendous amount about what people want to consume — great content. And so we’re going to come out of these Olympics with great digital knowledge and hopefully we’ll be able to turn those digital pennies into digital if not dollars digital fifty cent pieces at some point.

Almost a week into the Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is finally pressing the Chinese government on the issue of media freedom. According to the AP, “IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said the committee disapproves of ‘any attempts to hinder a journalist who is going about doing his job seemingly within the rules.’”

For some people — specifically the Human Rights Watch — words aren’t enough. They want action. Sophie Richardson, the group’s Asia advocacy director, explains:

“The IOC’s public expression of concern is welcome, but it won’t have any effect without real action. The International Olympic Committee’s failure to address this problem highlights the urgent need for mechanisms to prevent further abuses.”

As far as the Chinese are concerned, they are doing a fine job of letting foreign media have access. Wang Wei, an executive vice president of Beijing Games organizer, told The Wall Street Journal:

“China is developing quickly. People enjoy more freedom and they have a lot to say. If you ask the ordinary Chinese on the street they will say the same.

We wonder what the ordinary Chinese would say about beating a cameraman on said streets.

And it involves ringtones. From People’s Daily Online:

The Olympic theme song, entitled You and Me, was downloaded 5.73 million times via wireless music platform by 220,000 person-time per hour within 26 hours from 10:00 pm August 8 to 12 pm August 9, said the spokesman for China Mobile on August 12, 2008.

This breaks records in dissemination speed and sales speed of a single song in the history of wireless music.

China Mobile cellphone users could upload the song immediately after it was issued via wireless music platform.

Ha. Remember the other day when we said that if we heard about one more “fake” incident at the Olympics we were going to start to suspect the whole show was a CGI broadcast from the basement of 30 Rock? Well turns out we weren’t so far off! According to today’s Times 13 Olympic sports including archery, badminton, baseball, equestrian, fencing, field hockey, handball, shooting, soccer, softball, table tennis, tennis, and weight lifting are being called from the NBC studios here in the city.

The announcers are at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, nearly 7,000 miles from Beijing, sitting inside 14-foot-wide booths that are equipped with 24-inch HD monitors and headsets that pipe in the ambient sounds from the game sites in China. The announcers never see anything more than what the viewers see.

So they are also watching on twelve hour time delay? The answer is apparently no, most of the events are called as they happen. Also, this is not the first time that sporting events have been called off site, many of the World Cup games were done in the same manner. Meaning that NBC isn’t the only network who seems to conclude that “live” is actually only a state of mind.

International press is having marginal success infiltrating China’s Great Red Wall of media blackout, but it’s another story for hometown journos. According to Australia’s The Age, which is rapidly becoming our go-to source for non-Michael Phelps Olympics-related news, the Chinese propaganda bureau gave its country’s writers and editors guidelines for covering what could be perceived as negative stories. The gist: Don’t.

A stunningly frank 21-point plan from the propaganda bureau was issued to editors and journalists, ordering them to ignore hot international topics and any issues that may reflect negatively on the Olympic Games. Off limits are Tibet, Falun Gong, food safety matters including cancer-causing mineral water, the three official protest parks and emergencies inside Olympic venues

Reports of the plan — first discovered by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post — come a day after John Ray, Independent Television News‘ China correspondent, was dragged through the street after witnessing a pro-Tibetan rally.

Beijing officials deny the existence of the 21-point plan. Wang Wei, vice president of the Beijing Olympic committee, told The Age, “There is no such 21-point document. Chinese media, according to the Chinese constitution, are free to report on the Games.”

In case you’ve been, you know, dead, you’re aware that Michael Phelps is kind of a big deal.

But with interview after interview getting aired, reporters are running out of questions to ask America’s newest love affair. Even discussing the breaking world records gets old after awhile.

Phelps, to his credit, is trying to think of innovative ways to answer the inane questions. His latest tactic involves reading text messages. When trying to explain how aware he was of America’s reaction to his accomplishments, the 23-year-old pulled out his phone and read a recent one from a friend back home: “”Dude. It’s ridiculous how many times I have to see your ugly face.”

Michael Phelps. He’s just like us.

Since Goldenboy’s last swim isn’t scheduled until Sunday — and even then we’ll continually be subjected to countless additional interviews — the struggle for new questions and answers is likely to get much, much worse before it gets better.