Just how bad is the press censorship in Beijing for the Olympics if even the Cuban journalists are calling it a bit much? The Chinese have gone back on another of the promises made to the International Olympic Committee and are restricting the Internet access of the international media that are assembled in China to cover the Olympics. So any U.S. journalist in China who wants to look up something regarding Tibet or Chinese human rights abuses isn’t going to find anything.
This is in line with China’s recent decisions to block media access to Tienanmen Square, to prevent live person-in-the-street interviews and to prevent any type of media coverage that may be in the least bit critical of China. And it’s nice to see that NBC and the International Olympic Committee are caving on all of these issues.
Yes, it’s a sporting event, but NBC is sending news people over to cover this thing along with their sports people, so it would be nice if they would put a bit of a fuss over this. Instead, as far as NBC is concerned, China could drop a nuke on Taiwan and NBC wouldn’t be report it.
I’m sure Jim McKay would be proud.
But enough of that, because I want to get up on my political soapbox for a moment. Can somebody please explain to me how we can be great friends with the Chinese and do lots of business and have pretty open tourism with them despite their atrocious human rights background, yet the Cubans are so evil that tourism and business are not allowed? Is there anybody besides Cuban-Americans who came over to Florida when Castro took over and right-wing nutjobs who really think that Cuba is that much worse than China? I don’t understand why Cuba is considered so much more evil than China.
Besides, just think of what the influx of young Cuban talent into the majors could do for baseball. — John Royal
This article appears in Jul 24-30, 2008.
