U.S.A.’s Biased Press

"The press greatly contributed towards important decision-making, and I think it is a very positive thing."

After the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and International Skating Union (ISU) decided to award gold medals to both Russia and Canada for the swelled up `judging scandal` in the Figure Skating pairs event, ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta `thanked` the U.S. press. He spoke as if `the mistake would not have been found without the press`.

As he said, it was the `victory of the press` that the scandal, which greatly stirred the Salt Lake Winter Olympics, concluded with the two countries winning the gold together. The U.S. press kept pointing out the misjudgment and clung onto the issue everyday since the decision on the 12th.

The reason why the U.S. press renamed the `judging argument` as the `judging scandal` is that it wanted to prove the unfair judging by former communist nations voting as a bloc. Coincidentally, the judges, who gave the championship to Russia, were from Russia, Poland, Ukraine, China, and France.

The tenacious U.S. press consequently applied great pressure on the IOC chairman Jacques Rogge and ISU president Cinquanta. Especially, chairman Rogge, who was appointed to the office as the successor of Juan Antonio Samaranch last year, could not bear any controversy in his first Olympics.

However, would the U.S. press still have had clung onto the issue so tightly if it was an American athlete who won the gold? Casey Fitzrandolph of U.S.A. set a new Olympic record in the first race of speed skating 500m event on the 12th by a false start. It was the situation of `false start` according to the slow-motion video record that showed his hand moving before the start. Although his record in the second race was as slow as 34 seconds 81, he overran Japan’s Shimuzu Hiroyasu by 0.03 second, because of the fast timing in the first race. Not a single member of the U.S. press raised an objection.

The U.S. press in the Olympics is, in short, `biased` generous to domestic athletes and acutely strict on foreign ones.

Sang-Soo Kim ssoo@donga.com