Once upon a time, in a faraway land called China, a major sports event was hosted. This event was called the Olympics. During this event, an American was murdered and his wife was seriously injured, as was their Chinese guide. The man was related to an Olympic coach. The media covered the murder, of course, but they failed to delve deeply into it. Why not?
The murder occurred the day after the opening ceremony, and in light of the fact that the Chinese were trying to show the world that they are now a modern society, it's understandable that they preferred the world's focus to be on the city of Beijing rather than on the murder. However, it's unlike the American media to let a murder story go uninvestigated. There are still few details available as to what really happened and why the murder occurred.
David Wallecinsky, the vice president of the International Society of Olympic Historians, wrote a blog about this on the Huffington Post. I applaud his efforts to find out more about the case, including the condition of the Chinese guide. He tried to follow a serious news story, as well as some of the history behind the news story, in an age of glitz. Glitz won.
Of COURSE it wasn't a huge story! We were all too busy looking at the "important" things like who had how many medals and how wonderful China is now. Murder of an American? To the media, it was just another ho-hum. There are lots of Americans murdered more sensationally right here in the good ole US of A. The Olympics are political events with sports on the side, and we had flashier things to look at here.
The Chinese still have, to a large extent, a closed society. They wouldn't be expected to be overly friendly to media, and they still censor the Internet. If one tries to pit a news story against Chinese hush-hush techniques, the Chinese will win.
The Olympics are winding down, and we know about who has the most gold medals, which country has the most medals, etc., etc. We still don't know much about the murder of an American visitor to Beijing.
I know that this has been diaried before, but I have a slightly different point to make. I think that we have become so preoccupied with bronze and silver, gold and glamour, that we've forgotten to take into account the value of life itself. Many people in many countries tried to protest China's treatment of Tibet - but we ignored them. Many people tried to point out the dreadful quality of the air itself in Beijing itself - but we ignored them. Nobody is protesting the closed mouths of the Chinese in regard to an American murdered in Beijing - but if anyone did protest, I'm afraid that we would ignore them, too. The athletes and their accomplishments are important - those men and women have worked very hard in their areas and deserve accolades. However, I think that murder is more important than sports. What do you think?