Showing posts with label CTV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CTV. Show all posts

Saturday, March 06, 2010

Looking back at the Olympics: The highs and lows

It's almost a full week since the Olympics wrapped up, so I thought now would be a good time to look back at them. The emotions have faded, allowing for more logical analysis, but the implications of the Games—both positive and negative—will still be felt for some time to come.

Ever since the Olympics were given to Vancouver, I've been juggling excitement and loathing. As I wrote in my initial piece, the Olympics are an interesting topic to write about, because they present such crass commercialism, excess and corruption alongside such genuine moments of inspiration. They bring highs and lows, and they come as a group package. I'm not a fan of those who fall head over heels in love with the Games while ignoring the very real issues and problems they present, but I'm also not a fan of those who lose track of the positives in their rush to condemn and criticize, especially when they hurt their own cause with senseless violence [Doug Ward, The Vancouver Sun]. The Olympics come as a package deal, and ignoring one side of the story is problematic, regardless of which side it is.

There were some brilliant highs for me during the Games. One of the best was the atmosphere that sprung up around town. It was a triumphant atmosphere, but a welcoming one as well from what I saw; it reflected Canadian pride, but embraced people from all nations. Moreover, it was refreshing to see Vancouver, which often seems so strait-laced, truly let down its hair and party for a few weeks [Bruce Arthur, National Post].

There were plenty of highlights from the athletic competitions as well, including the success of athletes like Kevin Martin, one of the best curlers ever [Neate Sager, Fourth-Place Medal], and the Canadian hockey team. There were touching stories, such as Alex Bilodeau's victory in men's moguls over Canadian-turned-Australian spyware king and all-around bad dude [Paul Waldie, The Globe and Mail] Dale Begg-Smith, and the inspiration Bilodeau's older brother Frederic, who has cerebral palsy, provided [Randy Starkman, The Toronto Star], the Canadian teams claiming gold and silver [Joe O'Connor, National Post] in women's bobsleigh, and CIS and CFL star Jesse Lumsden's impressive perfomance [Vicki Hall, Canwest News Service] in the men's bobsleigh.

For me, perhaps the ultimate moment was Jon Montgomery's gold medal [Dan Robson, CBC Sports] in men's skeleton [Jeff Blair, The Globe and Mail] and his ecstatic celebration afterwards, made even more appropriate by his win coming on the heels of [Jesse Campigotto, CBC Sports] Melissa Hollingsworth's defeat. Maybe it's just my hoserism talking, but there was something perfectly Canadian about the way Montgomery accepted and chugged a pitcher of beer on his way through the village to a CTV interview. It seemed to reflect the overarching attitude of Canadians towards the Games, with our desire to show the world who we really are, not some sort of PR veneer.

At the same time, though, those great moments often came in spite of VANOC, the IOC and the Olympic broadcasting consortium, not because of them. Right from the start, the Olympics were marred by the horribly tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, which CTV then tried to sweep under the rug. The IOC quickly went on to blame the victim rather than look at the real issues with the luge track's design, and the story was soon swallowed up by other problems with the Games, such as the bizarre decision to use hay bales for seating at Cypress Mountain (which resulted in massive amounts of tickets being revoked [Erik Rolfsen, The Province] thanks to unsafe conditions) and the failure [Martin Rogers, Yahoo!] of the supposedly green ice-cleaning machines at the speed-skating oval in Richmond, which led to another ridiculous move to bring in a Zamboni from Calgary instead of using one of the infinite supply of the machines available at other local hockey rinks. While all this was going on, CTV, the main Canadian broadcaster of the Games, was ignoring the vast array of problems cropping up in favour of unabashedly draping themselves in Olympic banners, carrying the torch (literally!) for the IOC and VANOC and passing over the stories and achievements of foreign athletes in favour of some good old-fashioned homerism. Don't tell CTV that there's supposed to be no cheering in the press box; much of the time, it appeared that they were organizing a pep rally for the IOC and Team Canada rather than actually trying to cover the Games. The endless corporate involvement also put a damper on things; it's tougher to enjoy an event that's supposed to highlight the purity of sport when you're bombarded with promotions for RBC and Coca-Cola all day.

Yet, a week later, much of what I wrote in my day-after piece still holds true. The commercialism, the mistakes and the problems were on full display throughout, but the Olympics found a way to overcome. There were brilliant highlights from many of the athletic events, some featuring Canadians and others featuring superb athletes from around the world (a few examples include Latvian bobsleigh pilot Janis Minins [O'Connor], Korean figure skater Yu-Na Kim [Maggie Hendricks, Fourth-Place Medal], and American Shaun White putting on [Trey Kerby, Fourth-Place Medal] the greatest snowboarding display I've ever seen.

Perhaps more importantly, there was a genuine enthusiasm and atmosphere that sprung up in Vancouver. It was both patriotic and inclusive, and that truly highlighted the Olympic spirit in my mind, no matter what some morons who fulfilled Godwin's Law [Dashiell Bennett, Deadspin] or trotted out the old Canadian cliches [Jason Brough and Mike Halford, Orland Kurtenblog] might think. Canadians truly embraced the Games, not in the way they were instructed to by VANOC, CTV and the IOC, but in a deeper, more real way that turned out to be much better. The enthusiasm was genuine, not commercial, and the Olympics displayed something pure and exciting despite the best efforts of those in power to reduce them to a sanitized commercial enterprise. That's what I'll take away from these Games, and that's why I'll remember them in a positive fashion.

[P.S. If you're looking to follow any of the writers linked above on Twitter, I highly recommend them. Most of them are listed in these tweets of mine; simpler than linking them individually in here.]

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Fear And Loathing In Vancouver: On CTV's Jingoism

(This is part of my ongoing series exploring the different sides of the Olympics; see this post for an explanation. I would have used "hoserism" instead of "jingoism", but I prefer to associate that with things I like.).

One of my central issues with the Olympics is the difference between what they are and what they claim to be. This shows up in almost every arena imaginable; the Olympics are supposed to be a celebration of sports at their purest, but the omnipresent corporate tie-ins detract from that a bit. They're supposed to be run by an international body that has the good of athletes as its top goal; in reality, they're run by an incredibly corrupt organization* that sees nothing wrong with blaming the victim to cover up its own flawed decisions. They're supposed to be an international gathering to promote peace and goodwill, but quite often, it seems that what they're really promoting is national chest-thumping.

*You can read Andrew Jennings' great book The Lords of The Rings for many of the juicy details on the IOC's scandals over the years. One of my favourite stories was how Salt Lake City organizers arranged hookers and Viagra for visiting IOC officials before the vote on where the 2002 Games would be held.

As I've written before, those issues don't make the Olympics all bad. There are plenty of extremely positive aspects to the Games, and they can be a lot of fun to watch, to be around and to write about. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the Olympics, and I certainly am. My argument is just that the bad needs to be taken into consideration as well as the good.

Unfortunately, CTV's television coverage has failed in that department. Their Olympic coverage has no sense of balance whatsoever, and appears more like IOC-approved jingoistic puff pieces than any attempt to accurately present the Games. It's not just that they ignore the issues around the Games, although that's part of it, but even when they're covering events, they frequently ignore what actually happened in favour of sappy homerism. To me, that's a huge shame and a disservice to Canadians.

Let's go through some examples. The first and most egregious is their coverage of the Olympic torch relay, an event which has very little to do with the "spirit of the Olympics" and much more to do with the Third Reich. True journalistic coverage would feature frank coverage of the relay's shameful beginnings, a balanced, thorough discussion on if it had moved past that to something that people could be proud to enjoy and fair coverage of the anti-torch protest movements. Of course, CTV isn't particularly interested in journalism when it comes to the Olympics, so they presented us with endless over-the-top sappy camera shots and stories instead, trying to pump us up to watch their endlessly promoted Olympic product and imploring us to "Believe".

That alone wouldn't set CTV apart from most of the national television broadcasters covering the Olympics, though, as just about every country's television stations get caught up in the hype to some degree. (The print and radio coverage certainly isn't perfect, either, but it does often tend to at least try to offer some balance). What really stood out about CTV's torch relay "coverage" was how 27 of the torchbearers were journalists working for the CTV-led Olympic consortium. As William Houston wrote back in October, "The question is: Did these people have a procedure involving the brain that went badly wrong? Or are they just naturally soft? They’re supposed to be journalists. They will be at the Olympics as reporters and commentators. They’re expected to be objective and independent. They are not supposed to be part of the Olympic cheerleading torch procession. Nevertheless, over the next few months, off they’ll go, boosting the International Olympic Committee and VANOC as they prance across the country, torch in hand."

With that move, CTV lost its objectivity and officially became a promoter of the Olympic mythology. You can see it every time those torchbearers are on air; the very people supposed to be bringing us objective information can't be taken seriously because of their involvement with the Games, and you can bet they never have anything bad to say about the rampant commercialism that goes hand in hand with the Olympics.

 
CTV sees nothing wrong with having a Coca-Cola truck in the torch relay procession. 


However, the network could have at least partially redeemed themselves with fair and balanced coverage of the actual Games. They've done that to a degree on their website, but their TV offerings have given us little to suggest that they aren't just presenting Olympic propaganda. One of the most poignant examples comes from the death of 21-year-old Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, which has cast such a shadow over these Games. Once it came out that Kumaritashvili had crashed, most media outlets went full-out to try and learn the details and debate the issue of track safety. CTV briefly mentioned that he was hurt, then returned to their feel-good shots of crowds cheering the Olympic torch instead of trying to piece together what went wrong, how serious it was and if the track design was an issue. A cynic might opine that they didn't want to dampen the country's Olympic spirits in advance of that night's Opening Ceremonies, which they just happened to be televising.

That's been far from the only example of CTV neglecting basic journalistic principles, though. At least other outlets in the consortium have discussed many of the issues around the Games in addition to providing positive coverage. It's possible that CTV has done so too, but whenever I can stand to tune in for a few minutes before being overcome by the syrupy propaganda, they're talking about another heartwarming Canadian athlete's story. An Ottawa BeaverTail would be less cloyingly sweet and patriotic.

It's also troubling that the CTV-led television stations are providing little to no coverage of other nations' athletes, or the actual sports going on. One key example came in the women's bobsleigh last night on Sportsnet, where the heavily-favoured German team suffered a crash that looked quite dangerous. There was very little discussion of why they crashed or if they were okay, and much more of a focus on how this paved the way for Canada to claim gold and silver. CTV then one-upped Sportsnet on the Fail-O-Meter by cutting away from the Slovakia-Sweden men's hockey game for a pointless, sappy interview with the bobsleigh gold medallists; while we were forced to watch their treacle, the Slovaks scored two quick goals, paving the way for their eventual victory. Of course, the only meaning that game had to CTV was that it determined who will face Canada Friday; the rest of the world's only here to compete against us, you know.

Are there good things about CTV's coverage? Sure. Life isn't black and white, and it would be pretty difficult to disagree with absolutely everything they do. Their website coverage has been very good, and has included several pieces critical of elements of the Olympics (most from Globe and Mail journalists rather than CTV types, but at least they're posting them). They've made it easy to find video highlights of any event and watch streaming video of events online, and they deserve applause for that. Perhaps most importantly, they realize that it's 2010 and tape-delayed sports just don't work anymore, unlike NBC. They are providing coverage of the Games, and some of their event coverage has been solid, hockey in particular. However, I, for one, would have appreciated it much more if they had delivered a journalistically balanced version of the Games as a real sporting event, rather than the treacly Olympic and Canadian propaganda they appear to have opted for.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Tragedy, and why it needs to be discussed

The horrific death of 21-year-old Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili in an Olympic training run today was horrible to hear about. Sports are supposed to be an outlet full of recreation and entertainment, an escape from the gloomy world of the front pages, but far too often, the grim realities of life intrude. Whether it's fatal NASCAR crashes, athletes like Mickey Renaud dying from heart failure, young athletes killed in gang violence or old legends slipping away after health challenges, or the tragic impact of concussions on the lives of former athletes, illness and death all too frequently find their way into our escapist world.

CTV, one of the main Canadian networks broadcasting the Olympics, did their best to maintain that escapist illusion today. They gave the Kumaritashvili crash a passing mention before dashing back to their glowing propagandic coverage of the torch relay. Bruce Arthur of the National Post called their treatment of the situation "Orwellian" and "macabre", two statements I strongly agree with. There are even reports (from CFL Manager of Digital Media Jaime Stein) that CTV has been removing comments critical of their coverage of the crash from their website. Trying to sweep tragedies under the rug is never the right approach. To be fair, we probably shouldn't expect better from CTV, given that their entire buildup to the Olympics (including having their own staffers carry the Olympic torch) shows that they're more interested in propaganda than journalism. This is still disappointing from them, though.

This crash demands more coverage because, like most sports-related tragedies, it isn't an isolated incident. Jeff Blair of The Globe And Mail had an excellent piece last Saturday on the Olympic sliding track, which will be used for luge, skeleton and bobsleigh events. The track is so steep that it set records for the fastest speed in both luge and bobsleigh on the World Cup circuit. It also features turns of up to 5 Gs, and sleds routinely average 2.5 to 3 Gs on their way down the track.*

*For those who need a physics refresher, g is the gravitational constant of acceleration, or how fast you'd accelerate towards Earth in free-fall if there was no air resistance. It's approximately 9.81 metres/second squared. Thus, three Gs is three times the normal acceleration due to gravity, and about 30 metres/second squared. It's also about the amount of maximum acceleration encountered during a Space Shuttle launch. The effects of G-force, and how much humans can tolerate, depends on the duration of the acceleration and the direction it's coming from, but suffice it to say that 3-5 Gs is a hell of a lot.

It's not just that the track is fast; in fact, Kumaritashvili was clocked at 144.3 km/h, well below the track record of 153.9 km/h. The problems arise from combining an extremely fast course with high G-force twists and turns. According to the above Montreal Gazette story, the crash came on the final turn, Turn 16, known as "The Thunderbird", when "Kumaritashvili hit the track's inside wall, flew in the air up and over the outside wall and struck the girder". His crash is far from the only one, though; we've seen tons of athletes crashing on the course during World Cup events and during this practice week. The track is so intense that according to Blair's story, the IOC has already told organizers for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi to keep their sliding course more restrained.

The question is now what should come next. Chris Chase has a well-reasoned piece up at Fourth-Place Medal arguing that the track's too dangerous for luge, and the entire event should be cancelled. I'm not sure that that's the correct solution, but it absolutely has to be considered. If the luge event is to go on, there must first be a careful investigation and precautions taken to avoid a reoccurence of this tragedy.

In my mind, this tragedy and the others mentioned above speak to a broader dilemna in sports, though. There are fine lines to be walked, and many questions that must be asked. In luge and bobsleigh, there must be a balance between speed, thrills and safety, but where should it lie? In football and hockey, there has to be a distinction between physical play and head shots, and the need to reduce concussions has to be balanced with the need to deliver a hard-hitting product, but which side should we err on and where do we draw the line? Should all athletes be tested for heart conditions, and if so, at what age do we start? If an athlete is found to have a heart condition or some other defect, should we ban them from sports to preserve their safety, or should we let them play at their own risk?

In my mind, there are no black-and-white answers to any of these questions, and they all need to be looked at, researched, analyzed and debated. We need more detailed coverage of these tragedies, not less, even if it damages our goal of escapism. That's why CTV made the wrong move, going from a depressing story that needed to be covered to a potentially uplifting one that didn't need to be focused on. In my mind, we need to take a hard look at these situations despite their tragic nature, rather than sweeping them under the rug and moving on to the next feel-good moment.