Olympic Media Coverage

I believe that I read somewhere that the 2008 Beijing Olympics was one of the biggest events televised in not only China but in the history of the world. I think I read that over 4 billion people across the world watched the games. Which is a new record. I think that it surpassed the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.
In the video it talks about the media center that the Chinese had set up for the incoming media. Over 900 work stations, a place to bank, make flight changes, get a hair cut, a post office, and being able to get help in your native language. At the end of the video the reporter from CNN talked that information will flow freely in China. The Chinese government changed its press laws starting in January 2007, and said the changes would remain in effect through October 2008 when they would elapse (Lapchick, 2008).

But there were a few instances where information was sensored by the Chinese Governement. One instance was the murder of the father-in-law (Todd Bachman) of the U.S. Men's Volleyball coach. According to Richard Lapchick (2008), " Bachman's murder was not mentioned in the main Chinese TV evening news but was reported by the official Xinhua News Agency. According to press reports, Chinese journalists reportedly were censored from tying the murder of Bachman to the Olympic Games. Several Chinese reporters at a news conference held by the U.S. men's volleyball team had their notebooks and at least one tape recorder confiscated afterward. The Chinese press generally reported the "murder of a tourist" and did not connect Bachman to the volleyball coach or cover the concerns of U.S. Olympians so widely covered in the US media."

At one point during the games "Internet sites in the press center were restricted so journalists could not get access to human rights Web sites and those critical of China. The Chinese relaxed the restrictions after extensive media protests (Lapchick, 2008)."



Lapchick, Richard . China well-versed in controlling flow of information. (2008). ESPN.com. Retrieved Jan. 31, 2011, from  http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer08/columns/story?id=3535638