Games People Play: From Paris to Beijing to Iraq. A Week of Olympic Hopes and Political Scandals - MediaBizBuzz for August 11

On the best of days quotOne World One Dreamquot the theme of the XXIX Summer Games was an ambitious slogan devised for China39s coming out party onto the world stage But not even Olympic Peace that Greek tradition for armistice that dates back to the games of 8th century BC and was formally sanctioned by the UN Assembly in 1993 remained intact as Russia bombed Georgia over the weekend What began as a week where the frivolous heiress of The Simple Life remade herself while successfully mocking John McCain39s ad attack on Barack Obama39s popularity quickly shifted gears from the ridiculous to the sublime with the military commission thumbing its nose at BushWorld handing down a 66month sentence to Osama Bin Laden39s driver Salim Hamdan minus 5 years and 1 month for time served rather than the 30year sentence the administration demanded The rest of the week was no less unkind to Mr Bush Tuesday saw the publication of Pulitzer prizewinning reporter Ron Suskind39s The Way of The World asserting that a key intelligence document linking Saddam Hussein with Al Qaeda was forged by the CIA under orders from on high And despite the FBI39s pronouncement that its case against Bruce E Ivins was closed ABC39s role in reporting on the anthrax case came under growing scrutiny by week39s end But let39s not get ahead of ourselves The Olympics and NBC39s coverage of the event is an inestimable accomplishment Its size and scope will recalibrate and anticipate how media is consumed and distributed Let the games begin In the run up to the Summer Games China announced with nationalist pride that it had overtaken the US as the largest global population on the Internet It does get points off of course for offering a censored Internet The larger point is that technological prowess has become a benchmark right up there with economic and military strength While early reviews of the Opening Ceremonies praised the artistry of Zhang Yimou NBC39s domestic coverage was not given a pass Avid sports fan Rafat Ali of Paid Content was among the first to express his discontent that rather have Live with Bob Costas and Matt Lauer it was Live with Regis ampamp Kathie Lee Given the option of broadcasting the event live and repeating it in prime time NBC chose to offer tape delay to its millions of viewers While it didn39t appear to suffer ratingswise its audience of 342M was a record for any nonUS Olympic opening ceremony it mightily pissed off fanatics who complained that they were unable to share the event as it unfolded with their friends worldwide Unless they were able to watch CBC live on cable On the plus side Web traffic skyrocketed whereas Athens saw 7M pageviews back in 2004 NBCOlympicscom realized 70M pageviews that Friday a 1000 increase But this boon of added Internet attention has given rise to some of the most virulent criticism for NBC Silicon Alley Insider among other publications sought to goodnaturedly provide its readers with a roundup of links to find streams for those sports NBCOlympicscom was not offering gymnastics volleyball and swimming among them It helpfully sized up Dutch China Saudi urls finding Russia39s offerings at the top The following day it published a takedown notice by the IOC which has instantly become the sports version of the RIAA NBC is only offering content that has first been on broadcast television only then will it make the event available online Said one poster on SAI quotNBC is making pirates of honest peoplequot Now there are cool things afoot BusinessWeek reports on how viewers can watch their sports on YouTube live or on demand in 77 countries just not the USA or China Mobile however seems to be on NBC39s radar it39s using a company called SinglePoint to offer personalized content including mobile alerts and across all carriers Satellite TV the DISH network in particular is working with Ensequence to offer an interactive experience including a multiplescreen showcase a la John Cassavetes of events across six channels CNET discusses how Google39s DoubleClick InStream technology is delivering ads in online video and supporting Microsoft39s Silverlight a rival to Adobe Flash Now while it seems that GE has placed NBCU off the auction block for the time being the network must recognize that it need not coerce its viewers to watch the Olympics on television This remains a preferred outlet for viewing pleasure But when we are out and about commuting at the gym goofing off at work NBC is losing viewers and viewer loyalty by underestimating them Conventional wisdom held that the Games would eclipse the presidential race certainly this prefigured into Barack Obama39s decision to head home to Hawaii for the week But the political brouhaha39s of the week were hardly trifling Setting aside John Edwards39 peccadilloes Ron Suskind39s charges if substantiated rise to the level of an impeachable offense His smoking gun The CIA39s former Deputy Chief of Clandestine Operations Robert Richer went on record that the White House ordered a forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to the Sept 11 2001 attacks Specifically the letter asserts that 911 hijacker Mohammed Atta received training in Baghdad while also discussing the arrival of that infamous yellowcake shipment from Niger As personal attacks rose during the week Suskind saw fit to publish a partial transcript of his chat with Richer While the left blogosphere is piling on his isn39t a partisan attack On Friday The American Conservative upheld his argument apart from offering that it felt that it was thenDefense Undersecretary Douglas Feith39s Office of Special Plans that cooked up the document And Suskind39s leftwing publisher Rupert Murdoch On its own the Suskind revelation is heady stuff but there39s more For years Salon39s Glenn Greenwald has been a lone voice in the wilderness expressing cynicism on the anthrax case and any links that were found between it and Saddam Hussein With the suicide of Bruce E Ivins and the government39s case against him made public this voice was not quieted Rather it became an uproar ABCNews led the charge that the anthrax sent to among others House Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Sen Leahy of Vermont included a trace of bentonite a signature component used by the Iraqi dictator The broadcaster claimed it had four independent sources and outlets such as The Weekly Standard availed themselves to its reporting as another piece of ironclad evidence on our march to war Given that Ivins worked at Ft Detrick the same lab where the anthrax testing occurred and that bentonite was shortly thereafter debunked as part of the anthrax sample Greenwald decided to take ABC39s reporting to task Media mavens like NYU Journalism professor Jay Rosen founder of Huffington Post39s Off The Bus citizen journalism experiment pushed the story by creating a blog meme asking readers to forward three questions for ABC to answer Brian Ross did so for TVNewser but rather unconvincingly The Columbia Journalism Review was likewise unsatisfied and pressed the Net to answer three more questions Unresolved Was ABC deliberately duped by its sources and fed information by the White House Editorials in the Wall Street Journal the Washington Post the New York Times and The New Republic want them to reveal their sources since confidentiality39s off the table when a source lies or misleads Nicholas Kristof has a timely editorial in yesterday39s Times cautioning how military support is funded at the expense of diplomatic efforts And he cites a new RAND study that finds only seven percent of terrorist groups have yielded to military force For the majority they are either absorbed into the political process or they are dismantled by police work While Russia has rebuffed Georgia39s overtures for ceasefire as of 547am EST it is poignant to see athletes from each of the countries sharing the podium with mutual admiration on full view Olympic historian and former NBC commentator David Wallechinsky has some sage advice on protesting the Olympics The Cliff Notes Don39t protest the Chinese people or quotChinaquot but the Chinese Communist Party CCP only five percent of the populace are members In the meantime he suggests that we hold the Olympic sponsors to account quotWhy not ask CocaCola GE Johnson ampamp Johnson Kodak McDonalds Panasonic Samsung or VISA what they think of human rights violations in Chinaquot

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Games People Play: From Paris to Beijing to Iraq. A Week of Olympic Hopes and Political Scandals - MediaBizBuzz for August 11

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Jerry Weinstein

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 10: Political Spending) - By Carl Mayer

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Games People Play: From Paris to Beijing to Iraq. A Week of Olympic Hopes and Political Scandals - MediaBizBuzz for August 11

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