Ugly Americans: A Look At The Worst Of #NBCFail
Harper: I feel I had a pretty good story — knee surgery two months before Olympic trials in 2008, to make the team but 0.007, not have a contract…working three jobs, living in a frat house, trying to make it work. Coming off running in someone else’s shoes getting the gold medal. Uhhh, I’d say I was pretty interesting. I just felt as if I worked really hard to represent my country in the best way possible, and to come way with the gold medal, and to honestly seem as if, because their favorite didn’t win all of sudden it’s just like, ‘Were going to push your story aside, and still gonna push this one.’ That hurt. It did. It hurt my feelings. But I feel as if I showed I can deal with the pressure, I came back, and I think you kinda got to respect it a little bit now.
Beadle: [to Harper and Kellie Wells] You guys kinda hang out together…Is there fighting amongst the team–we’re talking about Lolo Jones if you can’t figure this out—is there an awkward situation or now that it’s over we’ve all just moved on?
Wells: Well, I think that, on the podium tonight, the three girls that earned their spot and they got their medals and they worked hard and did what they needed to do, prevailed. And that’s all that really needs to be said.
Beadle: Wow.
Harper: BOOM! Just like that.
Beadle: You can cut the tension in here with a knife.
Jones can’t be blamed for the amount of attention NBC and others decided to place on her. However, she’s certainly benefiting from it, potentially at the overall expense of her teammates.
U.S. volleyball player Destinee Hooker. Courtesy: Zimbio.com
From Harper and Wells’ comments above, to Douglass’ soundbite to the Times concerning her underdog status, these Olympic games showcased how aware young athletes are of the media biases they have to deal with. Destinee Hooker, one of two Black women on the U.S. women’s indoor volleyball team, joined in on the fun when she was asked about her name by TMZ. After informing them that, yes, she’s heard the childish jokes, she added a final parting shot. Maybe it’s just me, but it sounded salty as all get out:
No reporters have asked me about my name. You are the first 
Though, if Bob Costas can’t let the chance to say ‘Djibouti’ go by without a giggle, then I don’t know why anyone else would expect mature behavior from an outlet like TMZ.
In the end NBC spent two weeks working two opposing angles. They couldn’t stop talking about how wonderful it was that American women medaled more than the men, yet, as Jay Smooth points out, the nature of the coverage was slanted less toward their talent and the exertion it took to make it to the games and more towards stretching any and all emotional threads as far as they could. Getting coverage required a pretty face or a sob story, though preferably both. Or maybe some cute kids; for instance, 400m hurdler Lashinda Deemus’ twin boys were always mentioned in her story.
It also “helped,” as in Douglas’ case, to be an athlete in a sport where their presence is…uncommon. One of my favorite Olympics activity is watching the announcers lose their minds when they encounter the athletic racial outlier.
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