There WILL be blogging at the Beijing Olympics
Posted February 15th, 2008 by Scott
With so many restrictions and guidelines in place for the media during the Olympics, I thought it was interesting to see this announcement made today by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) allowing competing athletes the ability to blog. The IOC considers blogging as “a legitimate form of personal expression and not a form of journalism.” This is interesting to see because I feel that blogging is absolutely a form of journalism; especially since we live in a world where companies are now reaching out to their PR agencies more often to “leak” new product information to consumers online.
I think that allowing blogging is a great idea and could potentially generate more of an audience for the Olympics (which equals more brand exposure for sponsors). People have the ability to develop a personal interest in athletes if they choose to follow them via their blog. At least they can get the athlete’s take on events prior to NBC’s report hours after the events occur.
This definitely adds another notch to blogging’s belt 
.
3 Comments Add your own
1. Mike | February 16th, 2008 at 2:43 am
I have only come across a couple of athletes with their own websites and I haven’t seen any that blog. I suppose they are too busy training!
2. Dear athletes, welcome to&hellip | February 18th, 2008 at 2:41 am
[...] shared with the athletes themselves. This can only be a good thing, an opinion shared by fellow bloggers. I for one can’t wait to read their take on everything from life in the athletes’ [...]
3. Jamie | February 18th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I’m absolutely psyched about this, especially since I’ve been following a few olympic hopefuls through their blogs over the past year or so. I think a lot of these athletes have used blogging as more of a personal marketing tool to make themselves more attractive to sponsors than using it as a form of journalism.
NBC usually does a pretty decent job of covering most of the events, but for any true fan of any Olympic sport, like triathlon for me, I can’t help but not trust them to give the race the full attention I think it deserves.
It is sad to see that the IOC still has pretty tight restrictions on what can be said and what media can be used. I can see where they are coming from with their strict control of the Olympic brand, but hopefully they will ease up in the next few years and realize that more insight into the lives of athletes will benefit everyone.
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