Politics & Science
Just another blogs.scienceforums.net weblog

When China won the Olympic games, one of the things it agreed to do was a bit unusual — it promised not to censor media reporting on anything related to the games, and to allow uncensored Internet access within the Olympic village before and during the games. It’s already broken these promises several times, the most recent incident taking place on Friday. Apparently thousands of people were waiting in line to purchase tickets and a fist-fight broke out around 4am. Hours later, in daylight after the incident was over, reporters were turned away from people standing in line whom they wanted to interview.

Security was ramped up today, and reporters were denied access to people in the lines by military police guards. Hong Kong television showed journalists being shoved by security officers as they tried to film, less than a mile from the main Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium.

“A reporter was trying to go into a restricted area, refused to comply with orders and was brought away by police,” said Sun Weide, the chief spokesman for the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee. “The police were trying to maintain order and we hope that journalists can comply with our rules.”

Beijing organizers have pledged to give reporters the same freedoms as at previous Olympics. Beijing police didn’t respond to a fax inquiring about the trouble last night and the security policy today.

Bloomberg story here.

The Wall Street Journal reports that some journalists were arrested and others were required to destroy footage. It goes on to talk about how this news is being censored within the media centers of the Olympic village.

Meanwhile, the government continues to block news Web sites such as the BBC’s Mandarin site and the Chinese-language, pro-democratic Apple Daily of Hong Kong. That is happening inside Olympic media centers, despite the promise of China’s Olympic organizers that Internet access would be unfettered. It was always unlikely that China’s media cops would be willing to suspend their censorship habits for the Olympics, and Friday’s overreaction to one unfortunate incident will harm China’s image far more than any reporting would have.

I could find only those two stories about the incident through Google News, though granted it’s not a huge incident.

Others attending at the Olympics are also reporting censorship unrelated to this event. Amnesty International’s web site is blocked, for example, according to various blogs.

I’m thinking that now that the games are about to begin, there’s little the International Olympic Committee can do — they can hardly pull the games at this late hour, and doing so would likely be seen by most (including me) as an overreaction.

I think what should happen is that the media needs to wake up and shine a VERY bright spotlight on this issue, instead of the dim and half-noticed one they’re kinda/sorta/thinking-about shining on it now.

These are articles I’ve recently posted to our new “Reading List” thread at SFN.

Slate op/ed on changing the War Powers Act:
http://www.slate.com/id/2195152?nav=wp

Howard Kurtz on the death of Tony Snow:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/13/AR2008071302054.html

From the Wall Street Journal and Cook Political Report. What’s interesting about this image is mainly the lower portion, which indicates how currently-competitive seats are leaning amongst voters in those districts.

[IMG]http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NA-AR345A_COATT_20080713205616.gif[/IMG]

Interesting article from Politico.com about Oliver Stone’s efforts to make his upcoming film “W” as realistic as possible.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11776.html

Whadya know, turns out daisies are liberal and fishes are conservative.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/04/AR2008070401185.html?hpid=sec-politics

Is it time to throw ‘under the bus’ under the bus?

The euphemistic phrase, which now also means jettisoning a political liability, has taken on a twisted and ubiquitous life of its own. The presumptive Democratic nominee seems to be a leader of the pack among under-the-bus flingers, slingers and tossers, according to cable news pundits and blogosphere scribes.

Mr. Obama has been accused of heaving his white grandmother; his former foreign policy adviser, Samantha Power; the former head of his vice presidential vetting committee, Jim Johnson; the Muslim community; public financing of presidential campaigns; his not-quite-e-mail-pal, Scarlett Johansson; and even his short-lived customized presidential seal — all under the bus.

He’s not alone. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, has been accused of flinging conservative radio talk-show host Bill Cunningham and the Revs. John Hagee and Ron Parsley under the bus, too.

The Wikipedia entry on the phrase has an amusing sidebar, fleshing out a tidbit from the above article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throw_under_the_bus

Etymologists trace the popularization of the expression to Cyndi Lauper[1], who was quoted by The Washington Post in 1984: “In the rock ’n’ roll business, you are either on the bus or under it. Playing “Feelings” with Eddie and the Condos in a buffet bar in Butte is under the bus.”

ROFL! There’s also a great example from the same entry:

[quote] * “He not only threw me under the bus, he backed up and ran over me again.” Larry Craig on Mitt Romney
[/quote]

Anyway, the Wikipedia article cites an NPR story saying the phrase has been used in over 400 political stories over the last six months. Time to throw it under the bus!