Western journalists document memorable accomodations in Sochi

[james_davis_nicoll]

The key thing about Potemkin villages is you don't let actually try to stay in one.

Comments

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Also, keep in mind that many athletes in Olympic events are not there on their own; they are there because their national sports programs wants them there, through which they get funding, training support, and (some) marketing. The athletes could say no, or raise a fuss, and they'd risk getting cut from their programs, and lose all the benefits deriving therefrom. Most of them are simply not the independent operators you'd like to paint them as.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

Well, the same goes for the reporters. They haven't been there to do sober exposés, they're there because their employing corporations expect them to generate the cynical, vulgar, intrusive sports coverage with a veneer of cheap sentimentality that their advertisers require. Tweeting their experiences as they happen, mostly from their private accounts, may not have the quiet dignity of the transparency you prefer, but to a degree, it's the transparency that's available to them, and to us. You're setting up a false dichotomy between the poor athletes and the sniggering reporters that isn't really there.

Also, if we'd prefer not to be the subject of poopbucket jokes, we should try to get the plumbing working before the guests show up.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I think if you check up-thread, I do go some way to avoid the dichotomy. And I'd probably object to the sniggering if it came from the athletes as well, it is just that I haven't seen any.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Good point. For the reporters it's more like, "Bob, you're going to Russia. Cover the stuff on the list there, and if possible say something nice about the American athletes." A feed from their private Twitter accounts is about as unfiltered and honest as we can hope for.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

If they had "this is me in private" and "this is me at my job" twitter feeds, I'd buy that; but as long as their bosses use their twitter feeds as a means of corporate promotion (and they use these feeds as a means of self-promotion-in-a-professional-capacity to build an audience which is marketable to their bosses and other potential employers), then really, how "unfiltered and honest" is it? It's just another genre of public professional discourse, and not one I care much for, really.