As always, Al Trautwig announcing Gymnastics is one of NBC's biggest blunders. It is not that he is so incompetent with the basics of his assignment, it is just that he is so consistently the biggest US booster that it is embarrassing, even by NBC Olympic coverage standards. Trying to be fair to him, I think a big part of his problem is that he and his broadcast partners (Canadian former gymnast Elfi Schlegel and American former gymnast Tim Daggett) are just too tightly embedded with the US gymnastic team. They are like Judith Miller, that NYT reporter who was so closely in bed with the Cheney (er, sorry, Bush) Administration that she was not able to properly cover the Iraq war, instead functioning as a cheerleader for it. I would like to see Trautwig do an Olympics once with expert analysts who are not quite as much in bed with the US team, trading a little bit of access for a little more objectivity.
There was drama last night (what a shock) in the women's (girls) gymnastics. I give NBC (I think it was Trautwig) credit for noting in advance that by the end of the night one of the US girls was going to be both celebrating the team moving on to medal competition, but crying because they had lost the chance to compete in the all arounds. I wish they had spent more time though explaining, and critiquing the rule that limits each country to only 2 all around contestants up front. No matter which US girl got left out, it was likely going to seem unfair, and waiting until the end to bitch about it made it seem like sour grapes. Also, when Daggett argued that the one girl who got left out (I did not learn the names of these girls yet) was underscored, he did not say which of the two American girls who made it to the next round should have been left out. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
