Olympic Games Beijing 2008

Networks Fight Shorter Olympic Leash from the NY Times

olympicgames | July 22, 2008

“For several years now NBC has meticulously planned all the details for its coverage of the many sports events at the Summer Olympics in China.

But with the Games only 19 days away, many at the network are concerned about how they will be permitted to cover any unscheduled events, like political protests or government crackdowns — or whether the Chinese government will allow them to cover such things at all.

One of the most common hypothetical questions NBC officials have bandied about involves the opening ceremonies on Aug. 8.

Hundreds of athletes will parade into a stadium in front of world leaders, including President Bush, and a huge global television audience. If an athlete holds a protest sign or waves a Tibetan flag, how will the Chinese hosts react? Will the television networks show the scene? How will the Chinese handle the media for the rest of the Games?

The stakes are high for both the network, which paid $900 million for broadcast rights for the Olympics, and the reputation of NBC News. If it covers any controversies aggressively, it risks drawing the ire of the Chinese and interfering with coverage of sports events. But if it shies from coverage of any protests, NBC risks being criticized in the West for kowtowing to China — particularly since its corporate parent, General Electric, is aggressively expanding its investments in China.

One thing is for sure, vows Steve Capus, the president of NBC’s news division: “If there’s news, we’re going to cover it.”

NBC and other broadcasters have been at odds with Chinese authorities over what, where and when they will be allowed to film. During the last seven years, broadcasters had been assured that they would receive the same freedoms they have had at previous Olympics, but in the last few months, those promises have been contradicted by strict visa rules, lengthy application processes and worries about censorship.

Seeking to defuse growing tension, network executives met face to face two weeks ago with representatives of the International Olympic Committee and Chinese officials. At an eight-hour meeting in the International Broadcast Center in Beijing, the Chinese organizing committee relented slightly, saying that broadcasters like NBC that have paid for rights to the Olympic Games may transmit live from Tiananmen Square — but for only six hours a day, from 6 to 10 a.m. and 9 to 11 p.m.

The broadcasters, which include the BBC in Britain, the CBC in Canada, the Seven Network in Australia and SABC in South Africa, unanimously pressed for further access, according to minutes of the meeting obtained by The New York Times. According to two people at the meeting, when the Beijing vice mayor, Cao Fuchao, remarked that his country’s authorities would not reverse their decision to restrict access, Alex Gilady, an I.O.C. commissioner and NBC vice president, pointed his finger and said: “We still have one month to go. We will pursue this to the end.”

But time is not on the broadcasters’ side. Nineteen days from now, when the torch is lighted in Beijing, journalists and viewers could be facing the most restrictive environment for an Olympics in modern times.

At the meeting, on July 9, after months of uncertainty, Chinese officials said that all applications for live broadcasting would be approved throughout Beijing and the other cities where Olympic competitions were planned. Furthermore, the committee said that all broadcasters could tape reports from Tiananmen Square.

But the broadcasters say they will not believe it until they see it. One I.O.C. commissioner, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid further complicating the situation, said matter-of-factly that Chinese officials had “put a tourniquet” on the Olympics.

“Had the I.O.C., and those vested with the decision to award the host city contract, known seven years ago that there would be severe restrictions on people being able to enter China simply to watch the Olympics, or that live broadcasting from Tiananmen Square would essentially be banned, or that reporters would be corralled at the whim of local security, then I seriously doubt whether Beijing would have been awarded the Olympics,” the commissioner said.

The contentious negotiations are particularly perilous for NBC, part of NBC Universal, which is trying to produce 3,600 hours of coverage. The company paid a record amount for the broadcast rights, and it expects to generate $1 billion in advertising revenue. The coverage will be produced by NBC Sports under the direction of Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics.

But the network could find itself covering news outside the track or swimming pools if there are political protests or another government crackdown. Mr. Capus of NBC acknowledged that these Games were arguably the most newsworthy Olympics in a generation, since they have put a spotlight on China’s environmental problems and human-rights abuses.

He was diplomatic about the recent negotiations. “We are encouraged by the progress that we saw last week, and the potential for the cooperation that has been pledged,” Mr. Capus said.

NBC has good reason to cross its fingers. Its owner, GE, has had its sales in China grow rapidly this decade, to a projected $10 billion by 2010, from around $1 billion in 2000. The company is involved in more than 300 projects related to these Games, including technology for the new National Stadium. Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chief executive of G.E., has said the Olympics will create “decades of good will in China.”

Source: NY Times

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Categories: 0lympic Games Business
Tags: Beijing 2008, china, Media, NBC
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Air Beijing

olympicgames | July 11, 2008

With a month remaining before the Beijing Olympics, the International Olympic Committee praised the city’s preparations but also cited one “open issue” that remain: whether the city can deliver good air quality.Meanwhile, environmental officials are focused on delivering blue skies, despite recent weeks that have brought unusual amounts of rain mixed with haze. Mr. Verbruggen said local officials briefed the I.O.C. delegation about the city’s contingency plans to improve air quality during the Games by temporarily closing factories in much of northern China and also restricting automobile traffic in Beijing. Beijing officials point to reductions in certain air pollutants and say the city has made measurable progress, even as they agree that more needs to be done. But independent analysts have questioned claims of progress. Earlier this year, Jacques Rogge, the I.O.C. president, cautioned that Beijing might need to postpone the marathon and other endurance events if air quality did not meet certain standards.

Source: NY Times

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Categories: Beijing 2008
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Call for demonstrations on 8 of August outside Chinese embassies and online

olympicgames | July 8, 2008

With exactly one month left before the Olympic Games opening ceremony in Beijing, Reporters Without Borders today condemned the absence of a goodwill gesture from the Chinese government as regards the approximately 100 imprisoned journalists, Internet users and cyber-dissidents.

“Do the Chinese authorities really think they are going to turn these games into an international success by stubbornly refusing to free prisoners of conscience and by gagging freedom of expression,” asked the press freedom organisation, which has been campaigning on this issue since 2001.

Reporters Without Borders is calling for demonstrations outside Chinese embassies during the opening ceremony. It is also organising a cyber-demonstration on its website (www.rsf.org) on the opening day.

“The occasional good news, such as the unblocking of access to certain foreign websites and the reopening of Tibet, have been eclipsed by a series of outrageous arrests and increased surveillance of human rights activists,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The Olympic infrastructure is in place, but police controls have been stepped up, the Internet is still censored, international radio stations are jammed and Beijing’s air is still polluted.”

“All these topics are banned in the Chinese press,” the organisation added. “And the luxury of the Olympic Press Centre that was inaugurated today in Beijing will not help foreign journalists to forget how precarious their rights are when they try to probe sensitive issues,”

Even the resumption of contacts with the Dalai Lama’s representatives is already being seen as a failure as the Chinese authorities are imposing an extravagant list of preconditions for any real dialogue. One of the Tibetan negotiators said on his return from China last week: “Before the Olympics it is not feasible to hold talks… they are obsessed with the Olympics.” The meeting was staged solely for the sake of the Olympics and to satisfy certain foreign countries, he added.

Much of the blame for the present crisis lies with the International Olympic Committee. By closing its eyes to the Chinese government’s repressive policies, the IOC has negated the “positive effect” that the games were supposed to have on human rights in China. The existence of around 10 “Olympic prisoners” such as Hu Jia and Yang Chunlin, who were arrested just for talking about the games, is proof of this.

It is not too late for the world sports movement to speak out on behalf of free expression. The Olympic Charter says that sport should contribute to “the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”

The relatives of certain imprisoned activists have been calling for a goodwill gesture from the Chinese authorities in the run-up to the games. Xinna, the wife of ethnic Mongolian publisher Hada, who has been detained for the past 13 years, this week appealed to the Chinese government to free her husband in a show of respect of human rights.

Reporters Without Borders has been calling for the past few months for a boycott of the 8 August opening ceremony by heads of state, heads of government and members of royal families.

So far, the government representatives who have announced their acceptance of the Chinese president’s invitation to attend are the king of Cambodia, the presidents of Afghanistan, Croatia, Mauritius, South Korea, Switzerland, United States and Vietnam, the prime ministers of Australia, Finland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands and Thailand, the Spanish foreign minister, the Indian minister of sports and Belgium’s Crown Prince Philippe.

The governments of Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, New Zealand and Poland have announced they will send no representative to the opening ceremony. Britain’s Prince Charles has said he will not go to Beijing while its prime minister will attend only the closing ceremony.

The French president will reportedly tell his Chinese counterpart tomorrow whether he will attend.

Source: RSF

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Categories: Politics 2008
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From Today’s Wall Street Journal

olympicgames |

July 7, 2008

In 2001, China’s Communist leaders promised the International Olympic Committee to allow free press access to both the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the country as a whole. So far signs aren’t good that Beijing will stick to its word.

Witness the case of Norman Choy, a senior reporter with Hong Kong’s Apple Daily who was turned away at the Beijing airport on July 1. Mr. Choy intended to cover events related to the Games; he is one of more than 20,000 journalists expected to report on China in relation to the Olympics over the next six weeks. Yet upon landing in Beijing, immigration officials pulled him aside and questioned him about his travel plans. They then confiscated Mr. Choy’s “home return” travel permit - which allows Hong Kong Chinese visa-free access to the mainland - citing national security law, and put him on the next flight home.

Mr. Choy and his editors still await a formal explanation for which section of the law he might have violated. It’s a smart bet Mr. Choy’s “offense” was working for Apple Daily, a vigorously pro-democracy paper that publishes editions in Hong Kong and Taiwan. But he’s not alone. Reporters Without Borders says it’s received several complaints in recent months from European journalists, mostly free-lancers, who are encountering inexplicable snags in applying for visas to enter China around the time of the Games.

This is all part of a nationwide pattern. Whether it’s this spring’s uprising in Tibet or the torch relay in the restive western Xinjiang province, foreign correspondents have run into a wall of official restraints and resistance, as Phelim Kine of Human Rights Watch documents here. Even when Beijing has briefly allowed foreign reporters into trouble spots, such as the areas hit by the Sichuan earthquake in May, it has quickly tamped down again. Reports of various kinds of intimidation all over the country are rife.

Starting tomorrow, the roughly 5,600 journalists accredited to cover the sporting events are supposed to be able to enter using their Olympic press cards in lieu of visas. They will file stories on the athletes and events. But that will be only part of the China story this summer. Beijing promised to allow journalists to cover the rest of it - not least in a new press law issued in December 2006 that was supposed to provide easier nationwide access to foreign reporters. The next few weeks will show whether it intends to keep its word instead of delivering only “press freedom” with Chinese characteristics.