Do you care what Michael Phelps thinks about Tibet?
I certainly don’t.
Sorry if you do, but when I was standing in front of his heaving wet chest after he had broken yet another world record, I just didn’t think to ask him.
The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games have seen the Olympic News Service criticised more than ever before.
And I’m pretty sure the T-word is the reason why.
The differences between these two articles demonstrate the divided opinions on the Service.
Jacqueline Magnay’s article is an opinion piece highly critical of the ONS.
Glenda Korporaal’s article is a researched exploration of the ONS, including official quotes from the head of the ONS.
Whilst in China working for the ONS, I did not come across Korporaal’s piece but I surely did read Magnay’s.
I was incredibly frustrated by her article and I have no doubt that this attitude will come over loud and very clear in this piece of writing.
It was very disappointing to come home to Australia with people thinking I had worked for a tool of Chinese propaganda.
This was not all the case as I will argue throughout this.
Although China is known for its protected media, Australia and England, where most of the ONS staff at my venue were from, are definitely not.
Did Magnay emerge from her mother’s womb clutching her Walkley with a world of knowledge pre-loaded inside her head?
Highly unlikely.
I think she at some stage was an “inexperienced wannabe journalist”, just like those that she says the Olympic News Service (ONS) employs.
I am 22 and yes, when compared to Ms Magnay I may be considered as being inexperienced.
But by writing off on this rant, Magnay makes it obvious that she is not a learned judge.
She must have known very little about the people that made up the ONS for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Unlike Magnay, Korporaal seeks out the official word from media veteran and ONS boss Steve Dettre on what the service provides, and thus, what its employees must do.
Korporaal notes that the ONS exists to “supply the massive volume of raw data, results, official biographies and quick comments from athletes”.
The majority of the team on which I worked were more than qualified to do the task for which they were employed.
On my team at the National Aquatics Center – the Water Cube – there were approximately 25 very different and talented individuals working to collect and publish flash quotes from competing athletes.
This team contained three people who had worked for previous Infostrada events, one of whom spoke fluent English, French, Spanish and a little bit of Portuguese.
We had a Chinese man of age forty-something, fluent in both English and German, who was taking his annual leave from his role as the Director of an engineering firm in China to volunteer at the Games.
One of my fellow University of Newcastle colleagues works as a broadcast journalist, while another has had experience in the magazine industry.
Another colleague and I have worked together for the last two years as sports reporters for a local Rugby League team and many of the team have seen their work published in local newspapers and University publications.
None of us have Walkleys, but Magnay, like I’m sure you did a long time ago, we have to start somewhere too.
The job of the ONS is not to be “journalists”, it is to provide journalists with the tools to better do their jobs.
As Korporaal explains in her article, journalists from smaller countries or smaller publications often have difficulty following their national team around for every event at every venue.
Through INFO2008, the ONS information database accessible during the Games, the ONS allow a journalist with limited resources to write as though they witnessed their favourite athletes compete first hand.
Magnay’s main cause for argument in her piece is her perception of the ONS as another arm of the infamous pro-China propaganda machine, not as an independent news service.
I fully support Dettre’s comments on the political stance of the ONS in Korporaal’s article.
He says that he does not care about “bringing down the government” and from his view too many journalists are focused on this.
His focus is on getting “good flash quotes”.
Magnay’s concern is that no political comment she heard through the Olympics was published on INFO2008.
Although I disagree with some of the policies of the Chinese government over the last one hundred years, I would not, and was told not to, self-censor on any comments that I heard during the Games.
I myself asked a question on this issue to Dettre during our training.
He said that he didn’t want ONS reporters to be the ones asking the controversial questions but he said to listen intently if a journalist decided to, and record any such responses.
Dettre said that we should, as all journalists must, remember who we were working for, but to ensure we still did our jobs as objective reporters.
Based on our training and the thoughts I gathered during this time, my idea of the ONS was that we spoke to athletes about their Olympic experience and their extraordinary athleticism.
When Australian diver Mathew Mitcham, the only openly homosexual male athlete at the 2008 Olympics, was jubilant after taking not only the final diving Gold of the Games but Australia’s first Olympic diving Gold since 1924, my instincts told me that the Australian media would prefer to know Mitcham’s favourite colour before they would give a flying proverbial about his views on Tibet.
I really did not see the relevance of asking any such things at any time throughout my work as a flash quote reporter.
Whether or not it was just at my venue, and my friends tell me it wasn’t, I did not even hear any comments that would meet Magnay’s standards of exciting political comment.
Quite honestly, am I naïve to think that Olympic athletes may just want to speak about the events in which they have prepared to compete for as long as they can remember?
I don’t think I am.
And as Korporaal states in her article, the ONS concentrate on Olympic sports events only, and not “outside events or political demonstrations”.
An important point Magnay neglects to address is the editorial structure of the ONS.
As the big-shot blogger she is now, Magnay must have forgotten that those perceived as “young” and “inexperienced” usually have to report to someone higher up the ladder.
By the time the flash quotes we collected hit INFO2008, there would be at least four sets of initials at the bottom of the report.
The Central Editorial Team (CET), a collection of highly experienced sub-editors, always had the final say on whatever went to print.
And this team was not simply made up of Chinese political figures – media professionals from around the world were in the majority.
Zimbabwean swimming multi-medallist Kirsty Coventry made comments regarding the conflict in her home country during a press conference following one of her medley events.
I recorded what she said about the current state of Zimbabwe and was not surprised when it was published on INFO2008 with minimal alteration.
It is really all just a matter of relevance.
The example Magnay uses to illustrate how the ONS were simply attempting to “bore the pants off inquisitive journos” was a quote taken before the Olympics had begun.
The ONS can only report what the athletes are saying and if that is “bland and clichéd”, blame the athletes and the media advisors that train them.
Magnay only example of censorship was in regard to Australian rower James Tomkins’ response to a political question.
This was not recorded by the ONS.
I did not work at the rowing and undoubtedly, the CET at every venue will vary.
I do agree with Magnay’s comment that this was “disturbing”, but only if the ONS did not make this comment available on INFO2008 for political reasons.
It frustrates me immensely that Magnay criticises the whole of the ONS on the basis of one incident, the motivation or reason for which is officially unknown by her or by the general public.
Coming from a country whose worst political scandals are started in Central Coast night-spots, most Australians have a much greater interest in sport than they do in governmental kerfuffles.
In Korporaal’s article Dettre explains why Australians are used in such high numbers by the ONS.
He says that “Australians are probably more easy going in environments such
as the Olympics” but that they are still “can-do people” and do whatever has to be done to do the job.
I found this to be very true through my experiences in Beijing with over half of our team at the Cube being Australian.
The other half of the team was made up of volunteers from the United States of America and China.
That is not to say we did our job any better than these other volunteers but we definitely had an advantage over the Chinese volunteers at times.
Writing for an English language based news agency is a challenge when English is not your native tongue.
The majority of athletes speak at least some basic English and after some difficulties with staff from translation services not speaking English (most spoke only Chinese and their second language), it became more efficient to take simple flash quotes in English.
For future events in non-English speaking nations, Infostrada should most definitely consider employing reliable English speaking translators, in the same way they do with their paid supervisory staff.
This would allow ONS teams to better do their jobs and provide higher quality information and quotes for journalists to better do their jobs.
Although I have illustrated my discussion with supporting evidence, I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed my ONS experience and have little criticism of the Service.
I may be somewhat biased in this sense but beyond this, I can see what the ONS and Infostrada attempt to achieve and I wholly support their objectives.
The ever-increasing pressures on journalists have increased the demand for timely, accurate and beneficial information from the ONS.
Within the first few days of Olympic competition, journalists seem to realise how difficult it is to see their nation’s athletes compete at every venue.
After they discover the way the ONS functions and what they can expect from INFO2008, journalists come to rely on the Service.
Many journalists throughout these Olympic Games seem to have focused incessantly on the current political climate in the host nation.
Coming to the ONS for information and quotes about this issue will lead only to a dead end.
Regardless of the host nation, whether that be Australia, Greece or China, the ONS is interested in the Olympics; not the politics.
The ONS is an independent, objective news agency that had eyes and ears at every event of the Olympic Games.
The issue of censorship was something with which I did not have to cross paths at the National Aquatics Center.
There are always individuals who attempt to take their own stance and I believe this was the case at venues where censorship was an obvious issue.
And when you dig specifically for something, a boring quote for example, you will most probably find it.
Elite athletes are trained to deal with the media.
Even if a top sportsman or woman were asked about their political leanings, I believe few would utter anything more than a solid “sorry, no comment”.
As I have discussed, these articles do both reflect my ONS experiences in some ways.
Korporaal shows the official side of the ONS by interviewing Steve Dettre.
Her discussion is based on this, and thus her opinions are informed and her conclusions legitimate.
Magnay writes straight from mind to pen, consulting no-one.
I am disappointed that an influential journalist can write relatively uninformed opinion pieces and disseminate them to the public.
The very nature of an opinion piece obviously allows for this, but as a young wannabe that is not yet worthy of a Walkley, the perspectives, views and judgments of Magnay are no longer worth anything to me.
