Bad Sports Spoil Good Games
Stephen McDonell, is being a bad sport. The BBC’s most senior reporter in China has had a bad week. A Global Times editorial[1] highlighted problems related to his bias and lack of accountability when he was challenged by a follower to report fairly on the Olympics since he was privileged enough to be able to go there and see them while most weren’t. Then there was a public meltdown on Twitter during which the Beeb’s man in Beijing, already known as being a twitter bully, became aggressive, abusive and extremely challenging.
For a short while in 2020, I used to ask him questions on Twitter, I’d sometimes ask for clarifications and, on one notable occasion, I questioned him out on an obvious lie; from that moment, I’ve been insulted several times by him, but without the right to reply as I’m blocked and unable to follow, comment, question or dispute what he says or does. Despite being blocked by him on Twitter, I was able to pass a comment on a ridiculous statement he made which led to an interesting turn of events.
The following day, McDonell locked his twitter account to followers only. His comment on locking the account was that there’d been a “coordinated attack” by trolls and a “gaggle…” including the “bike riding bozo” who he described as one of “…other D-Grade apologists”. I need to admit here; I’m one of the apologists and I’m also his “bike riding bozo”. I often tweet about my cycling adventures through and across China and even into Xinjiang. But this time, I had offended him by making a tweet pointing out that his inaccuracies and his attitude toward not only the country that hosts him and invites him to attend this incredible event, but his blocking of anyone who questions him should be pointed out to his employers and also the people who issue his visa to remain in China and live the wonderful life he seems to disparage so easily.
I don’t want to make this all about the BBC, it isn’t. It’s also about how the Olympics has been hijacked in a very poor effort to malign China by Western media. If we were to look for coordination it won’t be hard to find — every single western journalist is having an awful time at the Olympics while every single volunteer, staff and, most importantly, all the athletes inside the bubble seem, according to all their social media posts, to be having a great time. The journalists seem to be getting mistreated, there’s something wrong with their accommodation (a lot of it being 5 star), or their food, or the cocktails they love so much. Apparently, journalists over these 18 days are having very different lives when compared to everyone else participating in the Olympic Games, at least everyone else who isn’t a journalist.
This year’s event, the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, seems dominated more by media’s bad sports than by the Winter sports we tune in to see. Apart from the obvious Eileen Gu (Ai Ling) saga, which continues unabated despite her very mature and competent responses to some very immature and incompetent questions. The so-called mysterious disappearance of Peng Shuai was further reported, despite the fact that she actually made a personal appearance, also despite the fact she’s been seen on many different social media apps at sports events and in restaurants, as well as held a meeting with the IOC chief and made it clear she’s fine but would like her privacy respected. She even gave a full interview to a French media outlet but, according to western media, she’s still “disappeared”. When she does appear, she must be forced to smile for the cameras and when she’s interviewed western media seem to find images of “minders”, who are obviously (in their opinion) CPC minders and not just sound or lighting guys from the TV crew.
As well as this, the Covid bubble seems to be getting a lot of attention because it isn’t as relaxed and easy going as Tokyo’s bubble, where, unsurprisingly, record numbers of people actually attended and caught Covid[2]. Apparently, the streets near the hotel are deserted but no account is made for the fact that pictures showing this are taken at night and it’s not only snowing but the temperature is minus 10c or colder; the streets are deserted, therefore it’s dystopia.
Even more dystopic, according to journalists in bars such as Will Glasgow, who works for Murdoch press but also writes for ASPI, are the staff as they serve them beer, chilled wine or cocktails. The problem is not with the drinks, they seem to be getting plenty of them into their photos, but because the staff are protecting themselves by wearing PPE to avoid any harm international travelers who have been allowed into the bubble without proper quarantine and may be bringing infections in from their own countries.
We can be certain, most Beijingers are safe and warm inside their homes, not out on deserted streets at night and just as certain if they have to serve drinks in bars and mix with people who entered the country through a streamlined system of covid checks rather than quarantine, they ought to be wearing PPE.
Then there’s the food. Spaghetti with a cherry tomato caused a bit of a ruckus, an overcooked steak and a miso soup have been subjects of ridicule. Coming to China for a few weeks to cover an international sporting event, seems a very strange basis of complaint about a waiter wearing PPE or how steak wasn’t cooked to perfection. Why not order Beijing Duck or whatever else was on the menu that belonged in Beijing or was at least Chinese — when in Rome, and all that!
It seems however, that the athletes don’t have the same issues, they’re loving it. Almost 100% of the athlete’s social media is positive, most of the after-event press conferences are positive, only in the reporting by western media do we encounter what appear to be coordinated accounts of dystopia and negativity.
And, to finish off with the previously mentioned public meltdown of the BBC’s McDonell, here’s a few examples of how badly he handles a little criticism of his own rudeness and how, despite his Master Degree in journalism, he forgets how to spell some pretty basic words:
[1] https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202202/1252037.shtml
[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/31/tokyo-covid-cases-hit-record-high
