Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom - World Press ...

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Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom 18 The National Broadcasting Company did have some regular news staff in Moscow but the US rules meant they could only broadcast general news, not sports events. During the Games, there were problems with the security people. In the television center, they set the metal detectors to such a high degree of sensitivity that an alarm would go off even if somebody had a single metal tooth. The first three days, this resulted in endless queues trying to enter the center. Just an hour before the opening ceremony, the head of the Eurovision team called me saying that security would admit only one person per media outlet, even if the plans called for three. Things improved only after I told the Minister of the Interior that Eurovision would not cover the opening ceremony and that he would have to explain why to the world audience. There was no censorship. It was technically impossible anyway because foreign broadcasters could produce programs themselves and go directly on the air from their studios in Moscow, and also from Estonia, where the sailing events took place. The boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow had a negative impact on the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, which the Soviets decided to boycott. I participated in the meeting of the Soviet Olympic Committee when this was decided. Vitaly Smirnov, a member of the International Olympic Committee, and I voted against the boycott, but the Soviet press reported that the decision was unanimous. The Central Committee of the Communist Party explained that this was not revenge for the boycott of the Moscow Olympic Games but because emigrant groups in Los Angeles threatened terrorist attacks against Soviet sportsmen. There were indeed letters with such threats, but I'm not sure that they were not “arranged” for by Moscow. As a member of the International Olympic Committee television committee, I had visited LA and had met with the local security services. They were well prepared to protect the Soviet team. Of course, there were fools on both sides. One Los Angeles newspaper published an article saying that most Soviet sportsmen were KGB agents. Some real KGB officers used that assertion as an added argument to justify the boycott of the Olympics. I suggested that it would be very easy to solve the problem: The young gymnasts upon landing at Los Angeles airport could leave the aircraft with the slogan on their Olympic uniforms - “I am a KGB agent.” My humor was not appreciated. Since the protests have erupted in Tibet on 10 March, Chinese authorities have attempted to prevent information about the development from reaching both domestic and international audiences. Journalists have either been expelled from or denied access to regions where protests happened. As a result, there have been statements by some public figures calling for a boycott of the Beijing Games.
Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom 19 But if you really want human rights and press freedom in a given country where you think there are problems, don't start calling for rights and freedoms just before Olympics, but fight for them daily, as many journalists in China and elsewhere have done for years. Some of them, like Burmese journalist U Win Tin, have been in jail for many years, losing their health in the process, while politicians in the outside world have remained silent. Very often today, human rights and press freedom is much less important to politicians than selling Boeings, Airbuses or MIGs. In my opinion every Olympics is a chance to reinforce press freedom and human rights in the country where the Games take place. Calls for boycotts of the Olympic Games are cheap ways to seek publicity at the cost of the sportsmen. Media professionals of the host country are caught in a bind - under pressure from their own government and politicians on one side, and from the world press, their colleagues, on the other. Clever cooperation between host media and visiting media seems to me to be the most productive way around the issue. The host country media must have enough courage to explain to their politicians that the only way to counteract any negative publicity resulting from press freedom is to give media more freedom. An atmosphere of real freedom is of itself good publicity.
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