Biased reporting on Olympic events

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USZA

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My only access to Olympic events, is news sites and the like, so I've been surfing quite a few news sites, unfortunately most of them British.

What I've noticed, is the biased reporting and coverage of Olympic events, even if their team didn't get a placing. And to corroborate what I'm saying, here's a few examples:

With Chad Le Clos winning the 100m butterfly, they kept on waxing lyrical about Michael Phelps - as if he won gold, and even now they're saying that he IS the greatest Olympian - apparently, Michael Phelps is of British descent.

In the equestrian event, Team Britain won silver; the Daily Telegraph carried four stories about that - three about Zara Phillips, and one about the team - and a mere mention of the Germans who took gold.

As for the rowing, this is the official London 2012 site's take on it.

British lightweight four denied gold by inches
Britain’s rowers narrowly missed out on their second gold medal as the men’s lightweight four were denied victory by a matter of inches at Eton Dorney.

Brothers Peter and Richard Chambers, Rob Williams and Chris Bartley took silver in an agonisingly close race in front of a raucous crowd of 35,000.

After a strong final 500m of the 2km race to rein in the early leaders Denmark and New Zealand, South Africa surged through in the last few strokes to nick it on the line.

It was a photo-finish for second place as the next four boats crossed the line within a foot of each other, GB doing just enough to claim second place.

The Chambers brothers, from Coleraine in Northern Ireland, were bidding to become the first British brothers to win gold since fellow rowers Greg and Johnny Searle in 1992.

The four looked utterly dejected after they crossed the line, having started the race as favourites.

Sitting astride the boat with their feet in the water to cool off, they hardly exchanged a word with each other as the South Africans celebrated beside them.

Earlier the GB men’s double scullers finished fifth in their final.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/rowing/9446569/British-lightweight-four-denied-gold-by-inches.html

Maybe this is to be expected, but I find it to be in poor form, especially for them as hosts. As a host, you should be gracious enough to congratulate the winners and to acknowledge their achievements, instead of comparing them to your own athletes all the time - who sometimes didn't even win jack btw.

Just to balance this out, I've googled news articles on the Chad Le Clos win; found quite a few countries who ran congratulatory stories about it - not a single British one. In fact, the story that I did pick up, was this

Scene set for Michael Phelps and Chad le Clos to contest another thrilling duel in 100m butterfly final

Michael Phelps and Chad le Clos look like they will be contesting another thrilling duel in the final of the Olympic 100 metres butterfly tomorrow night.

Le Clos, who pipped Phelps to gold in the final of the 200m butterfly, qualified for tonight’s semi-final quickest, in a time of 51.54. Phelps, the reigning Olympic champion, also won his heat, swimming 51.72.

Le Clos has emerged as one of the stars of the Olympic Games after toppling Phelps in the great American’s strongest event. Now the South African is seeking to do the double over the master.

Phelps, though, will be determined to fight off the pretender in what will be his final individual event at an Olympic Games – provided, of course, that he does not change his mind about his promised retirement.

Before that he swims in the final of the 200m medley tonight against his rival and friend Ryan Lochte, hoping to win the 20th medal of his career.

Lochte has an even more punishing schedule, as he also races in the final of the 200m backstroke. He could win two golds inside 40 minutes if all goes to plan.
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This is going to be an interesting Olympics, in more ways than one. I'm just not sure that I'd be able to endure your style of reporting for the duration of it.
 
Mmmm. I guess it is only normal meneer. The Brits and British press will of course be behind their boys and grils...just like our press will be behind our boys and girls. I cant really blame them for this.
 
Ockie said:
Mmmm. I guess it is only normal meneer. The Brits and British press will of course be behind their boys and grils...just like our press will be behind our boys and girls. I cant really blame them for this.
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There's a difference between backing your team and slagging off a winning team. Brits exhibiting the same hooligan mentality that they report on so often; that's the only thing that is normal here.

This is supposed to be the Olympics, a unifying event, where countries are supposed to set aside their differences. Just check their reporting on countries that they don't have good foreign relations with; this is going to get interesting I tell ya.
 
VernD said:
There's a difference between backing your team and slagging off a winning team. Brits exhibiting the same hooligan mentality that they report on so often; that's the only thing that is normal here.

This is supposed to be the Olympics, a unifying event, where countries are supposed to set aside their differences. Just check their reporting on countries that they don't have good foreign relations with; this is going to get interesting I tell ya.
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hehe. Ok. You do have a point. All I know is we are doing so well....I dont really care about what their press thinks. My ex told me that their olympic commitee or whatever it is called set a target of 95 medals for them. That is hectic and they are very much below that target. Maybe their press trying to detract from that? :-)
 
The British press is there to cater for the brits, the SA media contingent for their SA readers, US media for the Americans . . . If the likes of AP and Reuters are being biased then thats a different matter.
 
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bwana said:
The british press is there to cater for the brits, the SA media contingent for their SA readers, US media for the Americans . . . If the likes of AP and Reuters are being biased then thats a different matter.
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/runs off to check Reuters and AP

Be back later :D
 
bwana said:
The british press is there to cater for the brits, the SA media contingent for their SA readers, US media for the Americans . . . If the likes of AP and Reuters are being biased then thats a different matter.
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Indeed, just like Supersport and Sport24 are pretty biased towards our local teams, it's the same with the British press
 
bwana said:
The british press is there to cater for the brits, the SA media contingent for their SA readers, US media for the Americans . . . If the likes of AP and Reuters are being biased then thats a different matter.
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On a serious note, it would do Reuters and AP well to stay away from such bias.
 
Rosaudio said:
Indeed, just like Supersport and Sport24 are pretty biased towards our local teams, it's the same with the British press
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But SuperSport and Sport24 are staffed by ex-athletes so that is actually par for the course. What they know about journalism is scary.
 
bwana said:
The british press is there to cater for the brits, the SA media contingent for their SA readers, US media for the Americans . . . If the likes of AP and Reuters are being biased then thats a different matter.
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Exactly, the EP Herald (our local rag) will desperately try to find a link to PE for anyone in the international news :D

I remember reading that if Andy Murray won the mens singles at Wimbledon the UK media would report his nationality as British but Scottish if he lost. True as Bob that's exactly what happened :)
 
MickZA said:
I remember reading that if Andy Murray won the mens singles at Wimbledon the UK media would report his nationality as British but Scottish if he lost. True as Bob that's exactly what happened :)
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I also remember him, Murray, insulting the British about two weeks before Wimbledon, and then apologising for it afterwards. They weren't too enthused with him in the first place that's why he had the lack-lustre support that he had.

The same as them going on about Michael Phelps, because of his British heritage, even though he only won silver; claiming someone as your own when it suits you.
 
That's how localised news works. In much the same way as our coverage has been slanted towards South African athletes. Not only is it expected, but it's okay in my books. If they owned the rights to Olympic reporting this might be a different story, but I don't see the problem. It might grate our collectively larger carrots when they do it, but so did our reporting of annihilating their cricket team the other day...
 
This isn't an England vs South Africa match; this is the world using Britain as their playing field. Would it be asking too much of them to report on the results of events and on individual performances, without making references to their own athletes? It's such a slap in the face of the winners, and, unfortunately, the whole world has to witness this, especially on live television.
 
Mark Cavendish 'lost' the road race despite being BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2011 and bestowed with an almost unbearable sense of expectation of having a dinner-plate sized gold disc hanging around his neck on The Mall. After the race, the Mail on Sunday bluntly termed Cavendish 'Nowhere Man' having lost out to 'unknown' Alexandre Vinokourov.

When Team GB did not win the men's road cycling race they labelled Vinokourov an 'unknown'. As a TdF stage winner and multiple one-day classics winner he is surely not unknown.
 
VernD said:
This isn't an England vs South Africa match; this is the world using Britain as their playing field. Would it be asking too much of them to report on the results of events and on individual performances, without making references to their own athletes? It's such a slap in the face of the winners, and, unfortunately, the whole world has to witness this, especially on live television.
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But why are you reading their news outlets exclusively? If you're not, then I don't understand your frustration. They're localising their coverage for their target audience (because you don't pay their salary on a daily basis), as is every other country-specific news outlet on the planet...
 
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