U.S. Journalists Look Forward to London Olympics

(ATR) Veteran U.S. journalists expect London to be easier to navigate than Beijing as the immediacy of today’s news cycle changes the way they cover the Games.

"The biggest difference is the language; there is no barrier," Tom Kirkland, sports director at television station KSL in Salt Lake City, tells Around the Rings at the Team USA Media Summit in Dallas, Texas. "For many of us who were in Beijing, it was somewhat comical to call the NBC travel desk to have them call our driver, who was sitting in the front seat, to tell him where we were going."

Mark Whicker, columnist at the Orange County Register, missed the 2008 Beijing Games, but has attended multiple earlier Olympics and has no concerns about London.

"I thought Athens and Sydney were great," he says, "I figured Sydney would be, but I thought Athens would be a disaster and it wasn’t. I just assume that most of the ones I’ve been to have worked very well, so I don’t have any reason to think (London) won’t."

Kirkland says he doesn’t expect the English capital’s famous traffic to be a problem because of the designated Olympic lanes.

Whicker has no worries about transportation logistics, either. "We survived Atlanta," he says, "so I think we’ll be all right."

Changing Coverage Plans

John Powers of the Boston Globe says his newspaper is sending only five people to London, "lowest in memory," compared to eight in Beijing. The Globe originally planned to send seven, but returned two credentials. Of the five journalists, one is the first Globe blogger at the Games.

"Budgetary issues are major," Powers tells ATR. And thanks to the Internet, he says "people already know a lot of the event results" by the time writers file their stories.

The Globe sent a videographer to the 2008 Games, but won’t send one to London. "We had a big problem in Beijing," Powers says, "because our videographer couldn’t get anything. He didn’t have a full E credential."

Wi-Fi Issue

Powers is disappointed that London organizers are not offering free Wi-Fi, which has been a point of contention with the international press association (AIPS). Many major international sporting events do not charge for the service.

"Absolutely they should (make it free)," Powers says. "When you’re looking at what the budget is, it’s a pittance. It’s bizarre that the IOC asks the organizers to be the host feed for worldwide TV and they don’t make them be a host feed for wireless. (It’s) pennies."

Scott M. Reid, Olympics writer for the Orange County Register says, he doesn’t mind paying for W-Fi "as long as it works. That’s the big question."

Tough Act to Follow

Reid says that "Vancouver was a high bar to top in every way," but he will be satisfied if London is "more user-friendly" than Beijing was.

"In terms of security, everything in Beijing was just a hassle," he says.

Reid says on one of the days swimming was taking place, "it was just gushing rain," but instead of allowing him to enter a convenient door to the Water Cube, "they want you to walk another 400 meters around the block and through a serpentine thing to get in, because that’s just what they do. There was a lot of little stuff like that."

Time Zone Friendlier

All of the "big-ticket items" the first week, such as Michael Phelps’ record-breaking campaign in swimming, were in the morning to accommodate NBC. (There was a 12-hour time difference between Beijing and the Eastern time zone in the U.S., but only a five-hour difference between London and New York.)

With other key events taking place late at night in 2008, "It seemed like you were working around the clock," Reid says. "Being on the West Coast, for the swimming finals you were right on deadline, so that was really stressful. By the time we got to the second week, I was really wiped out. There’s still that 24-hour cycle in London, but I don’t think there’ll be the pressure of Michael Phelps going for eight (gold medals). There won’t be that manic feeling that you had in Beijing. That was awful."

In television, Kirkland says, "We call it feeding the beast. We produce stuff, and as much as you produce, they’ll take. We have shows throughout the day and night. It’s really the job of our managers to control how much they want us to work because typically every show wants something. So you try to re-purpose things that you went live with in some shows and it becomes a challenge."

For the first time, NBC will livestream all events online, even the ones the network plans to show on tape delay in its primetime show. With so much streaming, as well as with Twitter and other Internet platforms, "the idea of holding stuff back doesn’t exist anymore," Kirkland says. "So for us, it’s just a question of when we can show highlights of the stuff we’re talking about. There’s an embargo until NBC’s primetime show is over."

Immediacy of Internet

Alice Park of Time Magazine says the venerable publication’s coverage will be predominantly online at www.time.com. Some of that content will later appear in the magazine.

"We’re planning at this point to have everything go up as soon as we see it, hear it and talk to the athletes," Park says. "That’s the trend that we’ve been seeing now."

Because Time Magazine also has a European edition, the preview issue will be larger. "We’ve got a good mix of stories," she says.

More Familiar Culture

Some media organizations sent additional reporters to Beijing four years ago to write non-sports stories.

"I think there’s more of the known (in London)," Powers says. "With Beijing, you were basically looking at a country finally getting on the map in that way. There were many cultural stories that were being done out of that place; at least by a lot of people, there will be less so in London. We all know what mushy peas taste like and bangers and mash."

With reporting in Dallas from Karen Rosen.

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