Bob Costas: The Olympics Deserve ‘All of the Disdain and Disgust’ They Get for Going Back to China
Veteran sportscaster Bob Costas hammered the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for their appeasement of China as they prepare to launch the Winter games in Beijing.
The Olympics are expected to be a highly-restrictive affair between China’s limits on press freedoms, coronavirus concerns, and the limited number of spectators that will be allowed to attend. CNN’s Brian Stelter spoke to Costas on Sunday to get his thoughts on how NBC Universal will handle these storylines, along with China’s human rights abuses, when they broadcast the games next month.
Costas began by torching the IOC for hosting the games in China in the first place:
We should preface this by saying that no one could have anticipated Covid, no matter what the venue is. But the IOC deserves all of the disdain and disgust that comes their way for going back to China yet again. They were in Beijing in 2008. They go to Sochi in 2014. They’re shameless about this stuff. And so, this takes place not only amid Covid, as did the Tokyo Games of a year ago. But as you mention, the restrictions on press freedom and the sense that everyone there is being monitored in some way…It isn’t just NBC. Any network that broadcasts big sports events is simultaneously in a position, it’s quasi-journalistic at best. You’re reporting a news event and what surrounds it in the case of the Olympics isn’t just what’s confined to one game in a stadium, you’re reporting an event, but you’re also promoting the event.
Stelter followed up by asking Costas what NBC can control as far as acknowledging China’s human rights abuses during the games. Costas predicted reporters will acknowledge China’s authoritarianism early in the games, but after that, they will address them “only if something specific that cannot be ignored happens during the course of the games, which very well could happen.”
Stelter observed that the Winter games have put a much greater spotlight than usual on the tendency for the Olympics to be viewed as sociopolitical battleground among the competing nations. Costas agreed the subtext of the Olympics has become increasingly obvious, but “there’s just a greater understanding” now of China’s human rights abuses.
“The IOC makes it a policy that they don’t approve of political statements during an Olympics,” Costas said. “That genie is going to be out of the bottle to a certain extent. Has to be.”
Watch above, via CNN.
