NBC is walking a tightrope at the Beijing Games. The network is covering sports on ice and snow — and news on human rights and genocide.
One of the great guessing games before any Olympic Games is who will light the flame at the opening ceremony. The answer, at the Beijing Games, turned out to be Zhao Jiawen, of men’s Nordic combined, and Dinigeer Yilamujiang, of women’s cross-country skiing.
She is Uyghur, according to Chinese state media. (The Uyghurs are China’s Muslim ethnic minority who are victims of genocide, according to the United States; that is one of the reasons that the U.S. is boycotting these Games diplomatically.)
Mike Tirico, NBC’s Olympics host, quickly noted the significance of the flame lighting during the live broadcast of the opening ceremony, which aired on Friday morning in the U.S., and which will repeat Friday evening. “Of course, those are the people from the region of Northwest China that have attracted so much attention in the conversation of human rights,” Tirico said, reporting from the scene.
Savannah Guthrie, the NBC anchor who reported from the U.S., put a sharper point on China’s choice. “It’s quite provocative,” she said. “It is a statement from the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, to choose an athlete from the Uyghur minority. It is an in-your-face response to Western nations, including the U.S., who have called the Chinese treatment of that group genocide.”
By one count, NBC mentioned the Uyghur people 16 times…
