Bound For Beijing

Four years ago, they were almost unheard of, but now, for the first time individual athletes have been given the go ahead to blog by the International Olympic Committee. The committee believes that bogging is a legitimate form of self expression and that athletes should be able to express themselves through their blogs.

However, the IOC does not see blogging as a form of journalism and consequently is requiring that any content written by accredited persons about the Olympic Games is restricted to their personal Olympic experience. In order to keep to the IOC blogging format, athletes are:

• Banned from posting any audiovisual material. The exception is pictures taken outside accredited areas, or personal pictures inside those areas that are not of any sporting events.
• Banned from posting any confidential information on third parties.
• Blogs cannot have exclusive agreements or advertising, or commercial activity with any company or third party.
• Blogs should adhere to the Olympic Spirit.

While the IOC is concerned with athletes posting opinions on political matters such as China’s human rights record, the majority of the guidelines are more concerned with commercial matters.

The broadcast rights contracts for the Olympic games are worth billions of dollars, and the IOC is understandably concerned with making sure those contracts are not violated.

This will be one of the many challenges that the IOC and other sporting organisations will face in the coming years. The New Media at the Olympics has given the average person the ability to participate in the news making process. But at the same time is making it more difficult to enforce the commercial contracts traditionally loved by the old media.

It may be that allowing Olympic Athletes the right to blog at the 2008 Beijing Olympics is a test case for the International Olympic Committee. If that is the case, it will be interesting to see how it will be handled at this years games, and at the Olympic Games in years to come.

Thanks: The Guardian

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