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This blogger at Daily Kos brought my attention to this story. He accuses NBC of censorship.
For those of you who watched the Olympics last night, you saw one of the great upsets – Australian Matthew Mitcham winning the gold medal in the men’s 10 metre platform. He won on his last dive, defeating the favored Chinese contestant, and preventing the host nation from sweeping all 8 metals in diving.It was an emotional moment – Mitcham collapsed in tears when he realized he had won.
But in an Olympics where personal struggle and biographical background was a rule, NBC made a decision to not tell Mitcham’s history-making detail. And their decision is shameful.
The blogger cites the Sydney Morning Herald’s coverage:
From teenage retirement to Royal Easter Show high-diver to gay icon to gold Olympic medallist, Matthew Mitcham’s journey to success has been an amazing roller-coaster.
Mitcham’s pulled off a stunning final dive in the 10 metre platform, scoring an incredible four perfect 10s, to steal the gold off favourite Chinese diver Luxin Zhou. Mitcham finished with 537.95 points.
It was a massive upset, defeating the premier and form Chinese divers Liang Huo and Luxin Zhou in front of a fierce home crowd.
Mitcham, 20, battled depression, retired in his teenage years after physical and emotional burn-out, then just nine months later resumed his sport in 2007. Last night, his triumphant return to the sport was crowned with gold.
The blogger is wrong about this gentleman being the first, although it might be a temporal issue. Greg Louganis, who won medals for America in the 1980s, came out in 1994 (and lost almost all of his corporate sponsorship). The rumors had been out for years, and Wheaties had already decided against putting him on the box stating that there weren’t adequate indications of “heroism,” despite the fact that Louganis had cracked his head open on the platform during a dive and continued to participate anyway, going on to win the gold medal with the very same dive which had caused his injury.
According to Outsports, most of the media is as silent on who this person is as NBC, including the New York Times. The LA Times did better.
Photo comes from Photobucket.
Addendum: Here’s a link to the medal ceremony. The guy’s enjoying himself.
So I went to soccer jamboree in Fortuna today, and an afternoon birthday party. I missed the live broadcast of the rally. I got back to Sohum in the late afternoon and spent a couple of hours flipping between the three cable news networks. For about half the time I watched Fox and I really got a feel for profound difference in coverage between Fox and the other stations.
Not to say that any of the coverage was particularly insightful or brilliant, but on CNN and MSNBC I repeatedly saw clips from Biden’s speech followed by talking head analysis of mixed levels of value. In the at minimum 45 minutes of Fox viewing I saw no clips of Biden’s speech – not one. I would say about 25 percent of the time was spent on McCain’s theme of Biden’s former slights about Obama’s experience when Biden was running for president. ALL of the rest of the time was spent discussing how much the choice pissed off Clinton supporters, bringing in whatever Democrats they could find to support the meme (Susan Estrich, a former Clinton campaign representative I didn’t recognize, etc.) with alleged journalist Geraldo Rivera saying he was “pissed” that Clinton was passed over.
Putting politics aside, are there any conservatives here who truly believe that Fox is anything other than an Republican front effort? Seriously. You don’t have to post your names. Do you really believe it’s “fair and balanced?” I’ve watched Fox for years now, and I’ve never been a fan. But it’s not even that it’s biased. It appears to be an integral part of the RNC ground game, right down to the campaign strategy. Fox isn’t a 527, so it can as a matter of law coordinate with the campaign.
It’s amazing watching the Republican spokespeople interviewed on all three networks. They all express deep indignation at the fact that Clinton wasn’t even vetted. I hope Hillary Clinton is truly touched by all this Republican compassion and concern for her feelings. Maybe she’ll express her gratitude on Tuesday evening.
On the failure to vet, this is from the NYT:
Hillary Rodham Clinton, who ran so closely to Obama in the primary, was never seriously considered, said two officials involved with the search. She asked not to be vetted unless she was going to be picked, the two officials said, speaking on a condition of anonymity to describe the private discussions.
Addendum: Here’s the croc tears ad from McCain. Any doubt that the exact same footage would have been trotted out had Clinton been chosen? Duh.
It’s a pretty safe bet that McCain won’t choose Mitt Romney, who called McCain a liar on several occasions for claiming that Romney supported timetables for withdrawal.
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