There are two regular periods of hiatus in the media.
One comes every year around Christmas-time when everyone pisses off to the beach, and if there is any news around there is no-one around the newsrooms to report it. Media mavens call this the Silly Season, because what does appear in what passes for news is evern sillier than what we normally see.
Seriously.
The other hiatus arrives once every four years when thousands of reporters are flown to the Olympics several weeks before they start, to find they have nothing yet about which to report until the Games actually commence. So, finally sick of interviewing each other and being ignored by the masses they think are following them, they occupy the bar writing stories about how Olympic venues are only half-ready, their water is only half-drinkable (poor lambs), and the air everywhere is only half-breathable. (You want to respond, “so only breathe the toxic half. Please.”)
It’s half-baked. It’s happened every Games since Heracles was a lad. And it’s tiresome.
They could just copy and paste their stories from every other year – and do.
They’ll be right one year. Or maybe half-right.
Which would be a better score than normal for most of them.
.
4 comments:
Better way to deal with the problem, and all the other problems the Olympics bring, do away with holding the Olympics.
Fuck mosquitoes, bring back nude olympics!
Modern mainstream media is a state programme here having a relationship with another state programme, the Olympics. Both will soon become extinct species so it's nice you've documented your observations for future palaeontologists about what we're now living through.
The future looks back on these Olympics as we now look back on an extinct species of river fish making a 'salmon run'. The shiny athletes leave their schools & undertake many trials to reach a place far from home where they have sex with one another and their reward is a row of shiny circles. Once this is done most of the fish deteriorate scandalously and die.
The future will see modern media as fossilised remains of an extinct megafauna bear. Come the season, thousands of bears reported to the main stream. Some brought cub reporters and taught them the ways of detaining athletes and how to predict, pounce, and cover any fish that made good media fare. This Silly Season fattened up the predatory megafauna on the spectical of sex and misery with easy copy although, it's true, it was only the same stories as every other Silly Season.
If not for posts like this future palaeontologists might well stumble on the crumbling remains of stadia or dig up petrified forests of poor and homeless people who were corralled away from view. But they'll never know, without out witnessing it now, all the different species of statist beasts and the complexities of this big government carousel of relics.
Are you now in breach of copyright?
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While individuals, news media and official sponsors are generally free to post about the games and athletes during the Olympics, other businesses and brands are essentially locked out from anything close to a direct discussion.
The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) warns businesses: "Do not create social media posts that are Olympic themed, that feature Olympic trademarks, that contain Games imagery or congratulate Olympic performance unless you are an official sponsor as specified in the Social Media Section."
While this might put a damper on some content ideas, we believe it is best to take a careful approach to this with AUT's social media presence.
Below is a summarized list of brand restrictions, with more information available here.
Important rules to note are:
1. Businesses can't use any of the Olympics' trademarked words or phrases.
These terms include:
•Olympic
•Olympian
•Team USA
•Future Olympian
•Gateway to gold
•Go for the gold
•Let the games begin
•Paralympic
•Pan Am Games
•Olympiad
•Paralympiad
•Pan-American
2. You can't use terms that reference the location of the Olympics, such as:
•Road to Rio
•Road to Pyeongchang
•Road to Tokyo
•Rio 2016
•Pyeongchang 2018
•Tokyo 2020
3. You must not use words that incorporate the word "Olympic," such as Mathlympics, Aqualympics, Chicagolympics, Radiolympics, etc.
4. You can't use hashtags that include Olympics trademarks such as #TeamUSA or #Rio2016.
5. You cannot use any official Olympics logos.
6. You cannot post any photos taken at the Olympics. (While not mentioned on the USOC's brand guidelines site, this rule is mentioned in a letter written by USOC chief marketing officer Lisa Baird and obtained by ESPN.)
7. You can't feature Olympic athletes in your social posts.
8. You can't even wish them luck.
9. Don't post any Olympics results.
10. You can't share anything from official Olympics social media accounts. Even retweets are prohibited.
11. No creating your own version of Olympic symbols, "whether made from your own logo, triangles, hexagons, soda bottle tops, onion rings, car tires, drink coasters, basketballs, etc."
12. "Do not host an Olympic- or Paralympic-themed contest or team-building event for employees."
The experts' advice to non-sponsor businesses is this: Tweet very carefully.
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