{"id":32322,"date":"2016-08-27T12:04:54","date_gmt":"2016-08-27T15:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=32322"},"modified":"2016-09-09T13:55:41","modified_gmt":"2016-09-09T16:55:41","slug":"not-all-international-media-were-swept-away-by-post-olympics-euphoria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=32322","title":{"rendered":"Not All International Media Were Swept Away by Post-Olympics Euphoria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In the days following the\u00a0Rio 2016 Olympics<\/a>,\u00a0Brazilian media have been examining reactions to the event from the international press. Globo TV<\/em> claimed international media was full of praise. An Ag\u00eancia Brasil<\/em> article<\/a> titled \u201cNorth American press highlights the success<\/a> of the Olympic Games in Brazil\u201d summarized select\u00a0positive reactions with\u00a0quotes praising the Closing Ceremony and the Games overall.<\/p>\n

The President’s\u00a0Office, in turn, published its own summary<\/a> of how the \u201cInternational Press Praise Brazilian Organization and Point to the Games\u2019 Success.\u201d The report highlights compliments about the event itself as well as select foreign reporters who praised improvements in Rio de Janeiro’s urban transportation<\/a>\u00a0and the revitalization<\/a> of the city’s Port<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yes, there has been plenty of global praise for the Olympics in this week of post-game analysis, but Brazilians should be aware of the prevalent critique too, little of which makes it onto the pages of national newspapers and even less so TV. Foreigners who doubted Rio\u2019s capacity to technically carry out the event from start to finish have been rightfully hushed, but many foreign journalists never doubted that ability in the first place. More thoughtful and skeptical questions around social legacy and the (at least) 12 billion dollar question of \u2018was it worth it?\u2019 have not been silenced in international media.<\/p>\n

Complex reactions to a complex event<\/h3>\n

In an interview on\u00a0NPR<\/em> examining “How Did Rio Do?<\/a>“, correspondent\u00a0Lulu Garcia-Navarro underscored the importance of looking separately at the 16 days of sports and the seven year preparation process that \u201cwas really very complex and very difficult\u201d for Brazilians. Referencing a Brazilian\u00a0poll published on the final day of the Games, she added: \u201cSixty-two percent of the population believed the Olympics brought more costs than benefits. And yet, 57 percent feel it improved Brazil’s image abroad. So, you know, Brazilians did fall in love with these games. They were ambivalent at the beginning. But they also know that the bill is coming due.\u201d Reflecting on the same polling data, The New York Times<\/em> quoted<\/a> O Estado de S. Paulo<\/em> columnist Jos\u00e9 Roberto de Toledo’s conclusion<\/a> that\u00a0the polls\u00a0reflected a \u201cwasteful event that worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Discussion of these\u00a0poll results\u00a0alone already offers far more\u00a0nuance than the simplistic evaluations from the International Olympic Committee<\/a>, the Rio2016 Organizing Committee<\/a>, interim president Michel Temer<\/a>, or Mayor Eduardo Paes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Federal<\/p>\n

Concern about what\u2019s coming next has been a frequent theme in international media. The aforementioned New York Times<\/em> article<\/a> emphasized that \u201cthe intoxicating mood of the past two weeks will inevitably give way to an array of challenges: the inadequate sewage-treatment system, the growing poverty and a broken state government unable to pay thousands of civil servants on time.\u201d In The Guardian<\/em>, Brazilian public security expert\u00a0Luiz Eduardo Soares called<\/a> the Games themselves \u201ca success,\u201d but continued on to say: \u201cWhat worries me\u2013and many residents\u2013is what happens the day after they finish. In a short while the Olympic Games will be memory, but they will last for us, who live in Rio, as a major object of political dispute and a challenge for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given those imminent concerns, Guardian sports correspondent Owen Gibson questioned<\/a> the IOC president Thomas Bach\u2019s rosy interpretation of events, likening some of his claims to George Orwell\u2019s concept of \u201cblackwhite,\u201d the \u201cability to believe that black is white.\u201d In contrast, Gibson’s article highlights both positives and negatives of the Games, calling them a \u201cride\u201d that \u201chas been by contradictory turns chaotic, uplifting, amusing, enchanting and enraging.\u201d This idea of the Games as \u201ccontradictory\u201d has been another regular theme in foreign media reactions. The Boston Globe<\/em>, for example, called the Olympics<\/a> \u201ca spectacle of contrast, an imperfect Games.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Games’ stated legacies have also continued to come under scrutiny. Gibson questioned<\/a> how using some Olympics\u00a0infrastructure to build four new schools will really address the \u201cdeep-rooted public-funding crisis\u201d that is rupturing the State\u2019s ability to maintain public education and health services. Articles from the BBC<\/em> and CBC<\/em> touched on how favela residents were excluded by high ticket prices<\/a> and legacy projects that didn\u2019t serve their needs<\/a>, respectively. A piece in\u00a0The Mirror<\/em><\/a>\u00a0forefronted the overbearing social costs of hosting the Games, as did Luiz Eduardo Soares’ reflection<\/a>\u00a0in The Guardian<\/em>.\u00a0Even the New York Times<\/em> article<\/a> cited by both Ag\u00eancia Brasil<\/em> and the federal government actually offered evidence to both support and contest the idea that the Games left a positive legacy for the city.<\/p>\n

Some articles refused to let the sports excitement distract from a searing critique. \u201cThe Rio Games were an Unjustifiable Human Disaster, and so are the Olympics,\u201d read one Vice<\/em> headline<\/a>. The article continued on to highlight mass forced evictions<\/a>, the thousands of people killed as the pacification policy<\/a> attempts to paint a picture of security, and the transfer of money to wealthy, private interests<\/a> at the cost of spiraling public debt, \u201cexacerbating socioeconomic divides.\u201d<\/p>\n

Success narrative under scrutiny<\/h3>\n

Anticipating the media to heap compliments onto the host city as the Games wrapped up, a ThinkProgress<\/em> article<\/a> titled \u201cDon\u2019t Call The Rio Olympics A \u2018Success\u2019” and this writer\u2019s article in POLITICO<\/em><\/a> explicitly cautioned journalists against praising the Olympics uncritically. ThinkProgress<\/em> sports reporter Lindsay Gibbs wrote: \u201cIndividual athletes had successes in Rio, and there\u2019s nothing wrong with savoring them. But don\u2019t let that distract you from the systemic failures at play in the Olympics as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tempered<\/p>\n

And perhaps there has been a small shift in the way mainstream media assesses mega-events, even since the recent 2014 World Cup<\/a>. BBC<\/em> correspondent Wyre Davies wrote<\/a> after the World Cup: \u201cI will hold my hand up, and so should quite a few others, for perhaps underestimating Brazil’s ability to hold what turned out to be an overwhelmingly successful World Cup.\u201d The article was not free of criticism, but the title, \u201cHow Brazil silenced its critics,\u201d was considerably more generous than the more neutral version after the Olympics: \u201cHas the Olympics been a success for Brazil?<\/a>\u201d In the post-Olympics article, Davies was more explicit about what he considers a success: \u201cFrom a purely sporting perspective, Rio 2016 has been an extraordinarily successful Olympic Games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other examples of praise were less than convincing: Canada\u2019s The National Post<\/em> articulated<\/a> how low expectations set up a narrative about success with low standards: \u201cRio\u2019s Olympics will be remembered as a success because they were not a failure.\u201d\u00a0Even the Los Angeles Times<\/em>\u00a0line highlighted by Ag\u00eancia Brasil<\/em>\u2014\u201cRio Games prove to be a challenge, but in the end, things weren\u2019t all that bad\u201d\u2014was hardly a dazzling review. It was also just the article’s caption on the site’s homepage rather than part of the balanced assessment in the\u00a0article<\/a> itself.<\/p>\n

Ranging from cautious\u00a0approval to unrestrained and poorly justified enthusiasm<\/a>, praise for Rio\u2019s Olympics certainly has been prevalent in the past weeks’ analyses. But the reaction from international media has been far more complex than the reports by Ag\u00eancia Brasil<\/em> and the federal government admit, much like the legacies of the Olympics themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas In the days following the\u00a0Rio 2016 Olympics,\u00a0Brazilian media have been examining reactions to the event from the international press. Globo TV claimed international media was full of praise. An Ag\u00eancia Brasil […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":32329,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1736,1288,1463,1329],"tags":[1075,325,327,23,1845,1900,2010,5,1402],"writer":[1352],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-32322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-1736","8":"category-highlight","9":"category-perceptions","10":"category-by-international-observers","11":"tag-critique","12":"tag-ioc","13":"tag-legacy-myth","14":"tag-mass-media","15":"tag-media","16":"tag-media-narrative","17":"tag-michel-temer","18":"tag-olympics","19":"tag-legacy","20":"writer-cerianne-robertson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32322"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=32322"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=32322"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=32322"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=32322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}