A coverage backlash
Steve Wilson
European Sports Editor, Associated Press; member, International Olympics Committee Press Commission

I cannot think of any other Games that have attracted so much interest in terms of press coverage, scrutiny and controversy as the past few weeks have shown in China. Ever since Beijing got the Games seven years ago, one key issue was going to be how China was going to deal with the influx of tends of thousands of media on its doorstep. That is something that has never happened before.

I was in Beijing during the well-publicized protests along the Olympic torch relay in London in Paris, San Francisco and in Buenos Aires. So the atmosphere was quite lively. Most striking of all, though, was that throughout the entire week of press conferences, media briefings and interviews, not one question was ever raised about the sports events, about the venues or about the preparation and readiness for the Games themselves. Not a single one. And not even a single question about the air pollution in Beijing, which a few months ago was probably the headline issue of these Games.

It was all about the politics, the torch relay.  It really underlined how unrealistic it is to consider the Olympic Games as just a sporting event. It involves so much more. The International Olympic Committee was repeatedly asked about some of the hot issues, but the President, Jacques Rogge, would not be drawn into dealing with the human rights debate. Their position is that they should try not to cross the lines into politics.

However, the one issue where he did speak quite directly and openly was on press freedom, referring particularly to the law that was enacted on January 1, 2007 in China, which lifted many of the restrictions on the foreign press working in China. The law allows foreign media more freedom to travel and to do interviews. My colleagues in China tell me that this law has definitely improved conditions for them. The problem is that the regulations can be undermined on the ground at the local level where interview subjects may be under pressure or intimidated not to cooperate with the media.

There has been an ugly backlash against the Western media over the coverage of Tibet. Many Chinese feel that the coverage has been distorted or biased. There has been a spate of e-mails and telephoned threats, and quite serious menaces against journalists in Beijing, including some from our own bureau.

The current situation has fed this nationalism and hostility toward the West and the media in particular. If the situation persists, or gets worse in the next few weeks or months, the media could find things difficult, in that the people they want to talk to are going to feel more nervous and reluctant to cooperate.

For journalists who have not been to China before, there are a few simple realities that anyone who lives in China knows well. For example, CNN, BBC World or other foreign satellite channels are available only in hotels, offices or compounds where foreigners live. The Chinese do not have access to them. Newscasts are regularly blacked out.

Access to foreign news sites on the Internet is also regularly blocked. The International Olympic Committee has stressed that the Internet must be open during the Olympics, that there should be unfettered access by the press to web sites. That is something that the committee can deal with directly, since it is part of the host city contract with the Beijing organizers. It is not theoretical. It is a contractual point that the committee can push.

TV broadcasters have also had concerns. There was some suggestion that broadcasting live from Tiananmen Square might not be allowed. Some TV stations would like to use that venue as the perfect backdrop for their reports during the Olympics. There were even questions in Beijing while I was there whether the TV feed would be live. Will all broadcasters have access to live footage from all venues, or would censors opt to delay coverage in case of any incident or protest? We were assured that the feed will be live.

30,000 journalists are expected to be there - that's three journalists for every athlete. Of that number approximately 20,000 will be accredited. That leaves 10,000 unaccredited, and that is another issue. The Beijing International Media Center will be for unaccredited journalists and who will therefore not have access to the Games venues. They will be in Beijing hoping to report on what is going on during the Olympics, and they will have some press conferences at the center as well as access to information from the Olympics.

The main interest of a lot of these journalists is not going to be who won the beach volleyball medal, or even the 100-meter dash. They will be as interested in things outside the field of play as inside of it. How China copes with that will be interesting.

Juan Antonio Samaranch, the former President of the International Olympic Committee, used to say the success of an Olympics is determined by the press. My company will have have up to 300 people there. It is one of the biggest events we have ever covered. I am not passing judgment on political issues, but we as a company are counting on the same working conditions that we had at previous Olympics. We have been promised by the organizers that that's what we will have.

Apart from some of the bigger issues we have touched on here I think what journalists really want at the Olympic Games is smooth logistics and working conditions - to be able to get to the venues on time, to connect their computers and get them to work, to be able to file and get their information via the communications system.

People ask me where we have had the most difficulty obtaining those conditions. Well, I have covered 10 Olympics, and I can think of one in particular where the press had a lot of trouble. Information and technology, and the results system barely worked, creating chaos for many of us. The buses got lost, and we got to venues late or not at all. Even the athletes faced the same challenges. There was an us-against-them mentality between the press and organizers. That was in 1996 and that host city was Atlanta.