Is the British Olympic Coverage too Parochial?

First topic message reminder :

Team GB make some impressive success in the 2012 Olympics, but is the fawning media coverage of what is an expected boost in home medal count a global embarrassment? Has national pride crossed the boundary of good taste? Should the coverage, especially on BBC focus more on the great achievers and less on the home achievers? Did Jessica Ennis really put Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps achievements in the shade as suggested on Sky News last night? Are the British Media bad winners?

Depends how you count "pushing over the line" realist. It's not proportional representation so the seats, however many, that usually vote Labour will reduce the chance of re-election, especially if the Conservatives get their boundary changes through.

But anyway, it's digressed from the OP. To bring us back on topic, what about Stephen Jones' Times article attacking NZ? any need for an apparently mighty and proud nation of GB to revel in it's Olympic success by taking pot shots at insignificantly small members of the so-called Commonwealth in it's broadsheet media? Looked like a terrifically parochial perspective to me...

AWOP, simple maths, take Scotland voting out of the equation and substract the seats of the losing party from the winning party and the Scottish Labour votes wouldn't have tipped the balance apart from on one occasion, that is how insignificant it is as a country.

As for parochial? Have you ever seen American news or Sports coverage? You'd be excused for thinking there is only one country in the world.

AWOP have you not noticed that its only kiwi posters that have attacked our olympic games on this forum.. There/your media is shocking pal and it is brainwashing you all

I haven't read the article but if it's Jones I suspect it's a wind up. He gets paid to deliberately be provocative and controversial. Personally I cannot stand him

I'm not a new zealander and I don't living in NZ, so hard to understanding how I am get brainwashed!

Care to respond, however, I only bring it up because of the anti-NZ article published in the Times by Stephen Jones that goes on a bizarre and clumsy attack on NZ. A great show of olympic spirit, commonwealth unity and journalistic integrity there...not.

Congratulations AWOP: on the longevity of this thread, the variety of topics it's touched on and your sudden discovery of coherent Ingerlish. You are a master of subtle wummery.

As I say I wouldn't call Jones parochial, more malicious, provocative and not demonstrative of the British media. Are we meant to be discussing overall media coverage or just TV coverage here?

anotherworldofpain wrote:I'm not a new zealander and I don't living in NZ, so hard to understanding how I am get brainwashed!

Care to respond, however, I only bring it up because of the anti-NZ article published in the Times by Stephen Jones that goes on a bizarre and clumsy attack on NZ. A great show of olympic spirit, commonwealth unity and journalistic integrity there...not.

Awop you allways get heated when NZ is brought up- Would you care to explain why?

mystiroakey wrote:

anotherworldofpain wrote:I'm not a new zealander and I don't living in NZ, so hard to understanding how I am get brainwashed!

Care to respond, however, I only bring it up because of the anti-NZ article published in the Times by Stephen Jones that goes on a bizarre and clumsy attack on NZ. A great show of olympic spirit, commonwealth unity and journalistic integrity there...not.

Awop you allways get heated when NZ is brought up- Would you care to explain why?

Wherever there is injustice, you will find us. Wherever there is suffering, we'll be there! Wherever liberty is threatened! You will find...

Ok what to think about the NZ coverage in reagrds to the England team in the 2011 rwc, or the nz coverage at the moment bagging the olympics day after day?

I don't think NZ coverage is bagging the olympics day after day; but if it is I am not aware. I'm not there and don't watching or reading the news from there.

The NZ media say very little about ENG in 2011! For starters they went home quite early and NZ was too obsessed with Dan Carter's groin and Richie McCaw's foot and having to beat France twice, it was mostly the ENG media that followed them around, blew them up like a brittle balloon out of proportion on the basis of some intangible "knock out pedigree" then reveled in it when they went Boom. Personally I thought they did very well to get as far as they did and were not far off France, who were ultimately finalists. ENG self-destructed off the field and were embroil in a lot of controversy so I'm not sure it is comparable anyway. From Tindall-gate to the hotel harassment incident, to the leaked game plans, to the PR disaster at their media engagement with Range Rover, to the JW ball-switching affiar, to the Tuilagi show boating incident...they were they own worse enemy.

How do you know so much about kiwis media in 2011. Yet not today?

Secondly do you think the UK media is worse than the kiwis or the ausor the yanks or the French or any?

anotherworldofpain wrote:Depends how you count "pushing over the line" realist. It's not proportional representation so the seats, however many, that usually vote Labour will reduce the chance of re-election, especially if the Conservatives get their boundary changes through.

But anyway, it's digressed from the OP. To bring us back on topic, what about Stephen Jones' Times article attacking NZ? any need for an apparently mighty and proud nation of GB to revel in it's Olympic success by taking pot shots at insignificantly small members of the so-called Commonwealth in it's broadsheet media? Looked like a terrifically parochial perspective to me...

What did he do, call them village idiots?

anotherworldofpain wrote:I'm not a new zealander and I don't living in NZ, so hard to understanding how I am get brainwashed!

Care to respond, however, I only bring it up because of the anti-NZ article published in the Times by Stephen Jones that goes on a bizarre and clumsy attack on NZ. A great show of olympic spirit, commonwealth unity and journalistic integrity there...not.

What has the publication of an article by a private organisation got to do with anything? Look a Fox News in the States. I'm sure there's plenty of hogwash in the NZ press. The Ozzie press were displaying the medal table without NZ on it as they were so far ahead - how about that for parochial?

They (NZ) are back on again now - however they have dropped down the table a little.

However, one TV channel has them in brackets now due to the major uproar it caused here.

mystiroakey wrote:How do you know so much about kiwis media in 2011. Yet not today?

Secondly do you think the UK media is worse than the kiwis or the ausor the yanks or the French or any?

Because I follow the rugby world cup and one of the best ways to follow was to read the local news paper and contrast to other newspapers and coverage to see the textures of correspondence and disagreement.

My mind was the UK press was very belittling of NZ during the RWC, and NZ very self conscious about the hosting capability. But this is similar to how the US press bullied the UK especially on the opening ceremony and how the UK press was so anxious prior to the games.

But now we can all see in the world that the London games are a big success and hosting is going very well! and even some fine weather! So nobody can complain or get introspective and self depreciating.

Thats a better post awop dude, however from my experience the kiwi press is no better than ours

Yesterday I was keen to watch the Men's Javelin Qualifying but it wasn't even on the Interactive coverage. Britain did have a competitor but he had no chance of qualifying let alone getting a medal. Are the two connected?

Hopefully the final will be on somewhere anyway.

Hibbz
I found some coverage on Eurosport. However, I agree that the coverage of field events has been a bit hit and miss, especially on the BBC - more interested in having Inverdull nattering with the 3 athlete pundits than in showing what is going on in the stadium.

Dummy,

I avoid the BBC1/2 coverage like the plague for the reasons you've mentioned but the coverage of the other field events has been superb on interactive. Shown all the jumps/throws and little if any chat which was why I was surprised not to be able to find it.

Then I worked it out that the others I'd watched had GBR competitors with "real medal prospects" to use their terminology.

The decathlon wasn't on much until the 400m either and again the GBR guy had pulled out previously.

I might just be being cynical and as long as they show the Javelin final then I'll be happy anyway.

Yes, The Inverdale Wittering Olympics. Tiresome.

Apparently in the US they dont use the official medal table and have another one for their coverage that puts them top.

That's what they did in Beijing. They had more medals overall, while China had more golds. They claimed they were first.

I'm not sure there is an official medal table to be honest, you can calculate it any way you like. It's not as if a country wins the Olympics.

At the moment they are top in gold and overall anyway.

Crimey wrote:That's what they did in Beijing. They had more medals overall, while China had more golds. They claimed they were first.

I'm not sure there is an official medal table to be honest, you can calculate it any way you like. It's not as if a country wins the Olympics.

At the moment they are top in gold and overall anyway.

Well Id assume the one on the Official website would be the official medal table, although the US are actually top in golds now anyway. The bigger difference is that the US one sticks GB down to 4th

Who cares what the yanks think. THey couldn't even point out the UK on a map anyway.

super_realist wrote:Who cares what the yanks think. THey couldn't even point out the UK on a map anyway.

Of course they can. It's next to Iraq over there with the other countries. Besides it's important to remember that some American's don't have maps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

Hell yeah. The capital is Durby Shire where the queen lives.

Codey! I'm hungry!

a quadruple bison burger with spray-on bacon fat and supersize fries for you then

Hard to hear from a country that inventing http://www.bacon-jam.co.uk/?gclid=CJaBzbGE3bECFYcLfAodNycA0A

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

Crimey wrote:That's what they did in Beijing. They had more medals overall, while China had more golds. They claimed they were first.

I'm not sure there is an official medal table to be honest, you can calculate it any way you like. It's not as if a country wins the Olympics.

At the moment they are top in gold and overall anyway.

Well Id assume the one on the Official website would be the official medal table, although the US are actually top in golds now anyway. The bigger difference is that the US one sticks GB down to 4th

For now

cheers AWOP, I'll be retching for the rest of the day

anotherworldofpain wrote:

super_realist wrote:Who cares what the yanks think. THey couldn't even point out the UK on a map anyway.

Of course they can. It's next to Iraq over there with the other countries. Besides it's important to remember that some American's don't have maps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

It must be confusing for them as many believe that Neil Armstrong was the first American to go abroad.

Portnoy wrote:

It must be confusing for them as many believe that Neil Armstrong was the first American to go abroad.

Yes, but taking nylon stockings and Hershey Bars to the moon was a bit optimistic, I think.

.

Portnoy wrote:

anotherworldofpain wrote:

super_realist wrote:Who cares what the yanks think. THey couldn't even point out the UK on a map anyway.

Of course they can. It's next to Iraq over there with the other countries. Besides it's important to remember that some American's don't have maps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

It must be confusing for them as many believe that Neil Armstrong was the first American to go abroad.

Especially as Hershey's aren't even that nice. Would have given Aliens a competely false first impression of chocolate

Take a spare set of purple stockings... just in case.

I saw Inverdale last night admit that the coverage was Parochial. He broadcast live that if it wasn't Parochial he wasn't doing his job right. So I guess this is what they aim for in the first place. Fair enough.

you asked the question -Was it 'too' poatriotic?. not if it was patriotic?

The coverge is rightly patriotic but not ott patriotic. The bbc have done a brilliant job of showing more events with varied nations competing than has ever been broadcast anywhere!- so count your lucky stars AWOP

Quite. Its perfectly reasonable to have a degree of national bias in whats shown and in support, and inevitable that the Beeb would be forced into positive spin about the organisation etc.
But they havent gone overboard with rampant nationalism and have celebrated performances of foreign athletes even in events where the British favourites were beaten. The crowds too have shown a level of appreciation and support for foreign competitors that you didnt get at Beijing.
Compared to coverage in America its very even handed. I dont know about the rest of the world but theres been factually incorrect coverage in the french press reported, including complaints events have been rigged (after theyd been mocking Britain for being behind in the medals table)
And compared to the New Zealand press who insulted the French team at the rugby world cup they hosted last year to the point they are still complaining about it, not to mention calling the welsh "village idiots" and paying people to make false allegations against the English the British press has been pretty well behaved.

Its a home olympics, I'd be a bit disappointed if the media weren't a tad biased tbh.

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:Quite. Its perfectly reasonable to have a degree of national bias in whats shown and in support, and inevitable that the Beeb would be forced into positive spin about the organisation etc.
But they havent gone overboard with rampant nationalism and have celebrated performances of foreign athletes even in events where the British favourites were beaten. The crowds too have shown a level of appreciation and support for foreign competitors that you didnt get at Beijing.
Compared to coverage in America its very even handed. I dont know about the rest of the world but theres been factually incorrect coverage in the french press reported, including complaints events have been rigged (after theyd been mocking Britain for being behind in the medals table)
And compared to the New Zealand press who insulted the French team at the rugby world cup they hosted last year to the point they are still complaining about it, not to mention calling the welsh "village idiots" and paying people to make false allegations against the English the British press has been pretty well behaved.

Any evidence of this accusation of pay somebody to make false allegations, Frankie? Otherwise you could be in hot water with the mods...

Wasn't that the previous tour to NZ where Ojo was falsely accused of r***?

Careful chequered. The "false" part came from a campaign by remote uninformed British tabloid.

Or by the judge officially looking into the case. Whichever seems more relevant

You are mistaken Chequered. There was no judge. I know that you are breastfed media pap here most of the time. But try not to let it rot your brain completely.

anotherworldofpain wrote:You are mistaken Chequered. There was no judge. I know that you are breastfed media pap here most of the time. But try not to let it rot your brain completely.

'here' - it's not as bad as most of the rest of the world, including NZ (been there, got the t-shirts and read the papers, you've nothing to boast about).

Anyway very contentious topic, and those victims involved have chosen to let it lie so is not for me to bringing it up. But in future if you are make the accusation please have evidence about it and not just rely on mistruth and some tatty newspaper speculation from a decade ago.

Chief Disciplinery Officer of the RFU investigated - Judge Jeff Blackett.

Quick bio for you WOP:

His Honour Commodore Jeffrey Blackett (born 20 May 1955) is a British judge, Royal Navy officer, and (since 2004) Judge Advocate General of the Armed Forces, Senior Circuit Judge since 2005, and the chief disciplinary officer at the Rugby Football Union (RFU) since. He presided over the Bloodgate scandal, amongst other things.

Woman refused to have her evidence tested, refused disclosure of hospital records and refused to provide any forensic evidence. In short she was a slag, a slut and an attention seeker.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/jul/11/englandrugbyunionteam.rugbyunion

Suggest you warm up those two braincells AWOP before making a prat of yourself with fallacious statements.

This was an RFU investigation, not a criminal proceeding. We're all familiar with RFU "investigations". They can't find their way to the try line on the whole, so we shouldn't expect them to find their way to any kind of truth.

The girl in question was protecting herself further against exactly the kind of masoginistic prejudice that you have just meted out, realising that further subjecting herself to such an ordeal would continue her suffering. Suggest you pull your head in and not be dishing out such ill-informed and regrettable invective when you are so bad informed. Sadly this is often the most prudent course of action in these horrific cases.

Don't forget that for their part, the ENG players refused to talk to the police and hid behind the RFU. I wonder what they had to hide? Given that the whole sordid affair came close to repeat on the next visit to NZ along with a host of other indiscretions, perhaps the RFU should take a good hard look at itself.