The Olympics Must Adapt to New Media

Vancouver is home to the 2010 Olympics, as much of the world is aware (and those who aren’t aware have more important things on their minds).  The city is enveloped in a flurry of activity, getting everything from buildings, athlete’s villages, and ski jumps ready for the onslaught of tourists, athletes and media that will descend onto our fair city.

Recently, the Vancouver Organizing Committee (aka VANOC – you know, the bigwigs in charge of all of the Olympic everythings in Vancouver) began a four-day “World Press Briefing” for more than 250 visiting journalists and media managers. There was some serious debate about how media coverage of the Olympics is changing dramatically due to new and emerging media.

Three local citizen journalists, under the Raincity Studios umbrella – Dave Olsen, Kris Krug & Robert Scales – have written an open letter to VANOC requesting entry into the closed-door press briefing.

DaveO, ever the eloquent one, says, “In brief, we’d like to have a conversation about how to allow fans and amateur media makers to document their Olympic experience…”.

“We are aware of your obligations to media rights holders and are seeking to provide an entirely different sort of coverage than the accredited media provide,” he wrote. “We are not looking to cover events per se but are instead interested in covering the cultural stories, athletes’ families’ stories, and stories from fans who saved and travelled from around the world for this experience. In other words, we plan to encourage and aggregate fan coverage of the individual’s on the street experience of the Games.”

Between the three of them, Scales, Krug and Olsen have covered Beijing 2008, Torino 2006, SLC 2002, and Nagano 1998, all unaccredited and on various forms of media.

DaveO goes on to explain that, in order to facilitate more citizen journalism, Raincity Studios will be “… hosting an independent, international media centre at our Gastown loft office. As part of this, we’ll organize events like photo walks and aggregate fan-made content for the enjoyment of a worldwide audience.”

This is going to happen with or without the mighty blessing of VANOC, but as DaveO pointed out,  “We’d [all] like to work with you to do this for mutual benefit.”

To date, all that I know is that the spokeswoman for VANOC told Jeff Lee, the Vancouver Sun Olympic Reporter that “The IOC is the ultimate arbiter on the representation on the press commission, and each country’s National Olympic Committee determines which media get accredited for the Games.”

She goes on to say that, “As the organizing committee, we can and will encourage both entities to recognize and facilitate the immense growth of online media, however ultimately decisions for press commission membership and Games accreditation lie with them. We have not yet responded to the open letter from the social media group but will do so in the coming days.”

So, Dave, Kris, Robert, where do we stand on this? Has VANOC gotten back to you? Have we come to any sort of conclusion here?