Winter Olympics Mass Scrimmage
Sunday, February 14th, 2010As we can with most of the rest of the world’s newspapers, it looks like those of us who can read German can currently enjoy extensive on-line coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics . . . yes, from the Financial Times Deutschland! Okay . . . but just as would be the case if Sports Illustrated ever decided to expand its news coverage to international bond markets, you have to wonder how successfully the publication in question can bring off the task of either finding or cultivating internally the sort of expertise needed to report in a credible manner on such subjects so far outside of its core competence. In the FTD’s case things are not helped by the apparent lack of reporters’ by-lines attached to the Winter Olympics articles.
Prompted by these concerns – and, to be honest, also by my essential indifference to the pure sport element of the events now happening in and around Vancouver anyway – I’d like to highlight for your consideration this interesting piece covering one mass outdoor sporting activity in which the FTD does boast extensive experience: scrimmages between demonstrators and riot police. A further consideration prompting me to do this is the concern that coverage of such ugly scenes on the Games’ periphery will be downplayed or even omitted entirely by the media (especially TV) that my readers might rely on for their “mainstream” news coverage. (more…)
