Columnist Dean Juipe: Media bores its Olympic audience

Dean Juipe

Monday, Feb. 18, 2002 | 9:51 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

They're vultures, lying in wait for the first hint of inappropriateness or controversy.

And when the scent is out, much of the nation's media becomes obsessed with monotonously dissecting the fresh meat sprawled before it.

What, I asked myself, would all those TV people (and newspaper reporters, to a slightly lesser extent) have spent their time on in Salt Lake City this past week if it wasn't for the figure skating brouhaha that surfaced last Monday? Would they actually have had to turn their attention to the intricacies of sports and report on the athletes and the flavor of the games?

Truthfully, if I'm subjected to one more panel discussion on the skating issue I believe I'll gag.

I almost did Sunday when the subject was still being "analyzed" on a weekly news program. OK, already, can't we just move on?

Not being a big fan of snow sports and the Gen X events that have infiltrated the Winter Olympics, I wasn't too excited by them anyway. But the reaction of the nation's media to the allegedly improper vote cast by a French judge during the pairs free skate ruined a good deal of the interest I had in what was transpiring in our neighboring state.

I'm ready for the closing ceremonies, just to see the whole figure-skating thing end.

I'm also reminded why it is that a healthy percentage of people in America dislike the media: It latches on to the issue of the day and won't let go, even at the risk of repetitiously presenting the same information over and over and over again.

The other day on ESPN -- which should know better, or should hire more diversified commentators if it doesn't -- there were successive shows seemingly devoted to nothing but the ice skating ruckus. It was torture to listen in on even an occasional basis as I did, what with neither show distinguishing itself and both showing the identical film clips on an ad nauseam basis.

I couldn't help but think that accused traitor John Walker Lindh would confess to his and everyone else's sins if they made him watch a full day of this.

There are segments of the media (mostly on nightly cable talk shows) that do nothing but hope and pray for something grisly to happen during the day, and this same approach has been on display during the Olympics. It's car-wreck journalism and it stinks when it unnecessarily infiltrates any sport that doesn't include cars.

The skating flap should have been seen for what it was: Just another irregularity in a sport rife with bias and misguided influence. For that matter, what happened to the Canadian and Russian skaters was hardly the first example of an Olympic-caliber error or bought vote, as they prove in boxing almost every four years.

I mean, the French judge deserved to be pilloried as she was and suspended as she is, and I took an interest in the clandestine nature of the affair for a day or two. But when it began to drag and when discussions on it (even though there was nothing new to report) began replacing the telecast of live events in Utah, it was interfering and entirely too redundant.

Heck, it was (and maybe still is) an omnipresent topic anytime you tune in to the Games.

I guess it's pretty obvious I'll be happy when they're done.