Is it just me, or have other people noticed the completely dense smog during NBC’s primetime coverage the last two nights? Keep in mind that evening Eastern time is morning Beijing time. So it is daylight in China when NBC comes on at 7pm Eastern.
Bob Costas has been anchoring NBC’s primetime coverage from the International Broadcast Center and there is a window behind him that overlooks the Olympic Green area.
The smog was so thick last night (Thursday morning in Beijing), that Bob moved from his first location on the NBC set (with window behind) to another spot which had murals of China’s scenery, not a window to the smoggy world behind him.
In addition, NBC is obviously no longer using LIVE pictures (so-called B-roll) when they show Beijing Olympic venues.
I am shocked – SHOCKED – that the media is falling for China’s claim that air quality in Beijing is “good.†I am also shocked at how little we hear about air quality since the games opened last Friday.
Before the games there were countless photos and stories about Beijing’s pollution. Now we’re being told it’s “fog†not “smog.†And those network trailers that show clear blue skies over The Great Wall and Tiananmen Square – what’s up with that?
When you watch the Olympics tonight, know that the blue skies that NBC shows was NOT filmed today or is NOT live from Beijing today.
NBC is as guilty as the Chinese of “lip-synching” — in this case, NBC is showing blue skies in Beijing while in reality, you can barely see the buildings behind Bob Costas.
Finally, have you ever seen a US city as dirty as Beijing has looked over Costas’ shoulder? Remember — China would have been exempt from Kyoto despite their air being completely disgusting.
Once again, high definition TV is showing the lies coming out of Beijing.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
Bruce, I remember when Athens was awarded the 2004 Olympics and the pundits were all in a tizzy over Athens’s awful smog (in Greek it’s called “nefos”), its infrastructure, inept police squad and how all these factors would impact the athletes.
Flash-forward 2004: not only were the skies clean, but the city itself was clean, safe and hospitable. Nobody got stabbed, nobody tried to mount a terrorist attack (almost 3 years after 9/11) and IOC president Jacques Rogge even called the games “wonderful, dream games.”
Also, what frosts me (as a man of Greek origin) is that NBC is going ga-ga over China’s local sights, temples, tourist areas etc. with a fervor they didn’t even condescend to deign upon Greece, which in my opinion is a more charming and beautiful country than China could ever be.
Of course, I freely admit my bias on that topic. Too bad NBC can’t do the same.
Regards,
Peter H.
What broadcast network doesn’t put up more attractive imagery as it’s backdrop? Did anyone really expect anything different?
It’s a bit like the way whenever they do a story on ANWR, they show mountains and meadows that are far away from the mosquito infested mud flats where the actual would take place. It’s all about furthering the agenda.
Well, no tourist did. My son was in Athens for the Olympics, sleeping on the beach and park benches. While walking back to the beach one night he wandered through a sketchy neighborhood where the police were cleaning up after a stabbing. It was probably a local brawl, which happens in every city of the world on any given day.
He didn’t like Athens much, he did find it dirty, but then he had just come from Croatia – and it was beautiful there – of course that is not a big city.
Is the media covering the olympics under any restrictions by the Chinese government?
TV likes cute backgrounds….like “Mission Accomplished!”
Jimmy reminds me….darn now that the Iraq war has been won we need to order 7 or 8 more of those MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banners. No thanks to the defeatist Democrats who wanted to retreat. Hooooahh. Time to plan parades for the honorable soldiers who did a magnificent job. Maybe we can save front row seats for Jimmy and his friends to cheer on the amazing American heros. 45 million free Iraquis and Afganis. Imagine it. Young Arab and Persian girls attending school, getting educated. Thank God for America. Let Freedom Ring. Thank you Mr President.
As I watched Meredith and Matt this morning, they had a full open area behind them and it was very clear what were looking at was smog. From their little exchange back and forth forth, they weren’t really hiding the fact that the city is quite shrouded in smog. I love all the stories coming out about how fake the country is; such as the little girl who was lip synched.
Then again, can’t see how much we can complain about their fakery….what percentage of products in this country are now made in China?
Hmmm. #7 I don’t quite understand how imports translate into fakery, censorship, and repression. Please don’t try to explain. I drink too much as it is.
The smog in Beijing is as bad as it was this spring according to my coworkers based there and in summer you also get the dust storms too. When I was there, it was so bad I couldn’t run outside in Beijing. It would be 10ish before I could tell if I would need rain gear or not. I suspect the press made the same deal they have with Saddam and others, where they don’t report truths that might limit their access.
And so Dan can keep us straight, I’m from the best liberal arts school in NE…
From day one, NBC has pointed out the smog issue in Beijing. They even did a feature, with graphics and all, as to why there is smog. So I’m not sure where this claim that the media is hiding the smog is coming from. And the media reported the lip-synching sham, showing the pictures of both girls. And I’ve heard several times Bela Karolyi (with Bob Costas) maintaining that some of the girls of the Chinese gymnastic team are clearly under 16, in violation of the rules.
Lying and misrepresenting is bad enough. And I understand why China wants to show a positive image. But why on earth would they do it when it’s blatant. So besides the world seeing that things are less than ideal, we see China being deceptive about it. It reminds me of this woman who tried to convey (without directly lying) that a pie was homemade. Somehow she thought it was worse admitting that the pie was store bought than having her guests knowing it was store bought and that her guests knew she deceived them. Go figure.
My dad, who lived in Southern California in the 1970s, was in Beijing a few years ago, and he said that the air was much worse in Shanghai. Worse than anything he had to endure when he lived in California. The Beijing air troubles have seem to have cropped up fairly recently (since his visit).
I heard that on a really bad day you can taste the pollution. And they call this the “green” Olympics, like in that smarmy segment of the opening ceremony; the one with the children.
Bruce, I’m not a fan of NBC, especially its cable affiliate MSNBC and the network news department, but I sure don’t see the same deception in Beijing that you keep seeing.
The “windows” behind Bob Costas in the student aren’t always showing the Olympic area. On Sunday morning (Beijing time) Costas opened his part of the day’s broadcast standing in Tiannaman Square where the smog was so bad you could barely see the Forbidden City area across the square. NBC did not try to hide the smog. Later, when he was back in the media center at the Oympics, NBC filled one whole window with the Tiannaman Square scene, which is miles south of the Oympics.
Trace Smith calls me from Beijing every day and while I don’t know if it was Friday or Thursday (or even Saturday) when he called TODAY, a rain and breeze had cleared the area and there were really blue skies over Beijing.
Travelogue time. I rented an apartment in Beijing for a month two years ago during January and February. I also (independently) hired a daily driver and interpreter. I was not tied into the state apparatus in any way other than to be sure that my arrangements were all registered with the Chi-com powers.
Geographically, Beijing sits in a climate bowl where winds from Mongolia play havoc. In the Spring, the place turns into a miserable dust bowl. In summer the temperature inversions trap pollution.
Beijing is almost out of control in terms of growth. The old houtang neighborhoods are being gobbled up as sites for high rise housing. There is a great shortage of labor in Beijing, so young people pour in from the countryside to fill the gap. This creates a perpetual housing and transportation shortage.
As I traveled about the city for hours a day and for weeks, I noticed that there was nearly no police presence in dealing with traffic. You will find huge crowds trying to cross a road, because traffic has the right-of-way and drivers make their own rules.
I know that NBC understands “the rules.” Google does. All US industries do. While China says they can’t find the manufacturers of pirate DVD’s, they can find a small lab producing anti-government DVD’s in a matter of hours.
After my apartment rental, I moved to a hotel run by the People’s Party which was connected to the Central Committee headquarters and next to the Supreme Court of China. Everyone in the “hotel” treated me like royalty. During my time there, I got to know a number of Central Committee residents. We had very open and frank conversations, but I was struck by how really naive they were about representative democracy. They assume there is a hidden controlling authority.
This is all to say that NBC is not pushing the envelope in terms of taking on the bankruptcy of the Chi-com reality. I wouldn’t either. NBC is making capitalistic mega-bucks from their exclusive license and their shareholders are far more important than some useless confrontation over Chi-com propaganda.
Soon enough, in my opinion, China will either crack down on its growing middle and upper economic class or lose its grip on the enormous poverty and unrest outside her enormous urban areas.
We Americans love China. The peasants take inferior leather and turn it into amazing expanses of fine product that have dropped the price of fine Italian leather sofas from $3,000 to under $500. Sony has the bulk of its products manufactured there. If you do not mind a Rolex with a second hand that clicks with quartz accuracy, you can find an Oyster copy in 18k gold for small money.
Yellow robes were reserved for the emperor. I asked a silk firm to build a copy for me, complete with gold and silver thread in the embroidery. $200. They were happy as larks to produce it in less than 48 hours.
The Chinese do not know if they have 1.8 billion or 1.3 billion people. That is a range of a half billion! If only 5% of the population is exceptional in their ability and determination, that means 25 million Chinese among the Chinese population that they can’t nail down are superstars!
Don’t sell these people short. And don’t assume that old school Leninist/Maoist tactics will stop them.
The Chinese leadership is holding a tiger on a cobweb leash.
#11
That’s what gets me. How do the global warmists sleep at night while in China? But then I suppose it’s because China’s already a Communist state and, therefore, doesn’t need fascist rules dictating how the people live like America supposedly does “for the common good”.
Dunno. However, I’d bet a paycheck that it’s directly proportional to the amount of rules, laws and taxes (eg. “minimum wage”) that prevents anybody in America from making these products and stifles ingenuity.
Well said, TGC. The left has done everything in its power to drive manufacturing out of this country through taxes and regulation. The United States has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world… and the Democrats want it to be even higher. The United States has extremely restrictive environmental, labor, and accounting regulations… Democrats want even more. The Unites States has legions of greedy trial lawyers ready to sue for anything and everything… these lawyers are the backbone of the Democrat party.
Then, they whine because manufacturing jobs go to countries where taxes are lower, regulations are less, and they aren’t going to be sued every other day by slip-and-fall vampires like John Edwards.
“regulations are less” s/b “regulations are fewer”
#13
Not to mention the fact that when jobs go overseas, the union (read: Mob) bosses can’t bilk the workers of their lunch money then turn around and make fat contributions to liberals who won’t let their own employees organise.
#4 – Leah, it is true that a small number of stabbings do take place in big cities and/or tourist areas, but it is mostly local crime. Guys get macho, drink too much ouzo, tell off someone else and engage in a few “your mother is a Turk” insults and then the knives come out. Literally.
BTW – why on earth was your son sleeping in park benches and on beaches? Last time I checked, there was such a thing as a youth hostel.
Not that I’m putting him down, mind you, but something like that is very dangerous in certain parts of the world, and Greece is no exception.
Also, it is true that some city streets outside the capital do leave a lot to be desired – especially the port of Piraeus, which in recent years has become VERY slummy.
Of course, being the spoiled plutocrat gay conservative that I am, I never go anywhere without my Amex card and a hotel reservation. 😉
(Yeah, that last line sounded a little too “Vera Charles” I admit.)
Regards,
Peter H.
C’mon, it’s the Olympics. The focus SHOULD be on sports. How much of the dreadful side of Los Angeles were we subjected to during those Olympics? Hiding it is silly, but so is focusing on it.
China has so much they can be proud of it makes me wonder why they feel the need to “fake” or cover up anything at all.
On the other hand, all the “phony” issues, the lip-syncing, the inserted graphics, and who knows what else, does tell us China has a long way to go despite all the “pretty pictures” they use to imply otherwise.