NBC’s coverage of the 2008 Olympics was notable for many things: the way they handled the time zone differences; their use of NBC, CNBC and MSNBC staff from across the company to broadcast from the various events; the way the company leveraged all of its broadcast and online assets to present more coverage of an Olympics than had ever been broadcast before. The coverage was not notable, however, for its openness and transparency in covering out gay and lesbian athletes.
Granted, I didn’t watch the untold hours of coverage the network devoted to this immense global event. But the coverage I did see that included out gay or lesbian athletes was noticeably lacking in its inclusion of the realities of our lives, such as Saturday’s men’s 10 meter platform diving final. The gold medal winner of that contest, Matthew Mitcham of Australia, was referenced only as the winner after his dramatic victory on his final drive. Most gay sports fans already knew Mitcham is gay (a recent Advocate cover story saw to that), but the millions of Olympic viewers watching NBC’s coverage likely had no idea that the man who ended China’s dreams of an 8-for-8 sweep of the diving competitions is an openly gay swimmer whose partner accompanied him to Beijing and was there in the Water Cube cheering him on.
There are few modern examples of an openly gay athlete winning a gold medal in the Olympics (Greg Louganis’ record run was nearly a generation ago, hard as that is for me to believe) and the lack of coverage of this simple fact is a rather glaring example of the lack of honesty about our lives that still exists in much so-called "mainstream" coverage of sports (as we have blogged previously, there were at least 10 out LGBT athletes in Beijing, but this fact was only covered in LGBT media). But lest I pick on NBC too much (their Web site does directly discuss Mitcham’s sexuality), let me be clear that other news outlets were similarly silent on this element of the story: initial post-event stories in the New York Times and The Australian also avoided mentioning Mitcham’s orientation. This is odd, to say the least, given the fawning coverage of related issues given to so many other Olympians.
Why does this matter? Well, if our lives are not acknowledged, it’s that much harder to demonstrate that we exist and that we contribute to the social fabric of the global community in ways large and small everyday. Much has been written about homophobia in sport, and I don’t seek to add to that canon. I do want to say, however, that the Olympic Closet is an anachronism that has no place in the 21st Century. Matthew Mitcham is a young man and likely to be on the Australian team for the next summer Olympics in London in 2012. Let’s hope media coverage – and society – has evolved by then so that Mitcham and all of the other LGBT athletes are acknowledged fully for who they are: not just Olympians, but LGBT people as well.
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Is it just me or could there be anything less irrelevant than the fact that a gold medalist belongs to the LGBT community?
I think instead of complaining that Mitcham was not portayed as the GAY gold medalist but simply as the gold medalist should be seen as a step in the right direction. This is about a victory in sports and the achievement has nothing to do with his sexuality.
I would agree with you to a certain extent if the US media covered other medalists including their partners. As I can only speak of the German media landscape I can only say that this happened only in rare cases. Therefore, I am more than happy that Mitcham’s sexual orientation was not part of coverage over here.
Of course I would appreciate if Mitcham became an advocate of the LGBT community as a gold medalist now and created media attention. But at the moment of his victory he was a sportsman and just that.
@ Guido. You might be the only one. Or at least in the minority. The US Media did cover other medalists sexuality – either directly or inadvertently – every time they mentioned a wife or husband or boyfriend or girlfriend they were covering the athletes’ sexuality .
I wouldn’t want to see “GAY gold medalist Matt Mitcham…” every time he’s mentioned either. But ignoring his partner’s embrace after he won after an incredible come back and shutting out the Chinese from a clean sweep was a poor choice by NBC.
Who the heck does NBC think is watching Men’s Diving anyway? Duh!