August 6, 2016

For the Love of God, Can We All Stop Whining About the Olympics Being Tape Delayed?

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Here is Meredith Blake in the LA Times commenting on the Olympic opening ceremonies last night:

 In yet the latest decision to fuel the #NBCfail hashag, the network broadcast the ceremony on a one-hour delay on the East Coast. The West Coast was delayed by an additional three hours. NBC claimed it was delaying the broadcast in order to provide additional “context” for viewers. The real reason, of course, was to draw as many eyeballs and run as many commercials (and women’s gymnastics promos) as possible.

Are we going to keep whining about this forever? The Olympics are tape-delayed so they can be broadcast in prime time. They’re stuffed with commercials because NBC paid a billion dollars for the broadcast rights and commercials are how they make up for that.

We’re not children. We all know this. Nevertheless, we’ve been complaining about it since 1992 and NBC has been resolutely tape-delaying the games anyway ever since. Why? Because that’s how most normal people like it. You know, the ones who have to work during the day and don’t get home until 6 or 7 o’clock.

The only question I have is why NBC allows itself to be bullied by a small squad of elitist reporters and sports purists into making up weird excuses about “context” or “plausibly live.” Why not just say, “Don’t be a child. We’re tape-delaying it so more people can watch.” Their viewing audience, which is much more sophisticated than the reporters and sports purists, will have no problem with this.

POSTSCRIPT: But other sports events aren’t tape delayed. Why the Olympics? Why why why?

Please. Events in the US aren’t tape delayed because they’re carefully scheduled to air when the networks want them to air. Overseas events are usually shown live and re-broadcast on tape delay. But you can’t do this with the Olympics because they run all day.

Also, not to make too fine a point of this, but most Americans don’t give a shit about most Olympic sports. They watch them once every four years, mostly to cheer Americans who win medals, and that’s about it. If it’s even slightly inconvenient to watch, they won’t bother. Despite their whinging, this is also true of the elitist reporters and sports purists, who for 47 months out of every 48 mostly couldn’t care less about rowing or archery or sumo wrestling.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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