Matt Schiavenza From the Dragon to the Apple- A Sinophile in New York

Olympic Coverage- China and the US

June Shih has a dispatch in Slate entitled "You think NBC is bad? You haven't seen CCTV" in which she skewers the state-run Chinese behemoth for its breathlessly patriotic Olympic coverage. While I do agree with her fundamental point, the example she provides to illustrate her point seems a little dubious to me:

Instead of soft-focus profiles, what you get from CCTV is raw, one-sided footage. Predictably, the cameras were trained exclusively on the Chinese gymnasts. During the early rotations, when the Chinese unexpectedly found themselves in fifth place, CCTV broadcast little or no footage of the teams in first, second, third, and fourth. Instead, even as the Chinese gymnasts waited for their scores, which often took several minutes, and other competitors were performing, the CCTV cameras stayed with them as they sat doing nothing. To fill the air, commentators offered thoughts such as "the team seems really tight. They really need to open up 100 percent. If they open up 100 percent, they will perform better." But we had no idea how well the other teams were performing. "Let's see some Americans!" my sister yelled.

Perhaps it's a matter of taste, but am I the only one who hates the "soft-focus profiles" that dominate American Olympic broadcasts? Frankly, it's refreshing that the Chinese coverage eschews these maudlin background stories in favor of, you know, actual sporting event coverage. In the past hour, I have watched (consecutively) women's field hockey, men's fencing, and women's wrestling. These are all interesting sports that would be ignored by NBC, who seems to think the Olympics consist only of gymnastics, swimming, basketball, and track. I watch the Olympics because I love sports, and because I relish the opportunity to watch sporting events that have a low profile during non-Olympic years. I don't need to know that Athlete X came from a small mining town in West Virginia, trained really hard, suffered adversity, found Jesus, and is now kicking ass in the Olympics. I'd rather see competition, and for all of its silly patriotism the Chinese coverage provides that in spades. And as far as her sister's desire to see more Americans, sorry! If that's a priority, why bother coming to China to watch?

Shih then writes:

But CCTV couldn't bear to look away from its own team yesterday. It was a reminder that, at the end of the day, it's still a large cog in a giant propaganda machine. NBC is patriotic because patriotism sells; CCTV is patriotic because patriotism is the law. Telling a story is not CCTV's priority; it's conveying the glory of China and the Chinese regime.

This is undoubtedly true. In China, where most media is government-controlled and the rest heavily censored, television networks and newspapers function as vessels of state power. The American media is drawn to the bottom line- what sells? In China, criticism of the ruling Communist Party is not permitted. In the US, networks and newspapers will take any opportunity to bring the government down, because if they don't someone else will.

Yet in terms of the Olympics, the overall effect is the same. Both American coverage and Chinese coverage is patriotic and biased, but I for one don't mind watching the games here in China because at least there are more broadcasts of actual events rather than the "Behind the Music"-style stories that NBC specializes in.

In high school, I had an eccentric Latin teacher who would return to his native England every four years because he couldn't stand to watch the Olympic coverage in the US. European coverage, we can agree, is indeed superior- lots of sports, lots of coverage, and only a smidgen of patriotism. Why don't we just have them cover the games for the whole world?