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Loading ...NBC on not mentioning Mitcham is gay: “We can’t cover everything”
Burnt out and struggling with depression and anxiety, an up-and-coming Olympic hopeful drops out of his sport two years before the Beijing Games. His coach talks him into resuming training the year before the Olympics and he makes his country’s team which isn’t expected to fare terribly well against China’s powerhouse squad.
Indeed, the athlete performs poorly in his first event, failing to even make the semifinals. In his final event, however, and on his final attempt, he wins in an upset that not only denies China the gold medal, but by winning prevents a gold medal sweep by China in all eight of that sports events.
Now add to that the fact that the athlete also happens to have come out as gay less than six months earlier and is the only out gay male athlete at the games.
As if that isn’t significant enough, his victory is easily the highest profile win ever by a gay man in an Olympic event. Both his mother and partner are in the stands to witness his triumph, something they almost didn’t get to do until a grant from Johnson & Johnson financed their trip to Beijing.
Finally, after receiving his gold medal, he climbs into the stands ala tennis’ Patrick Rafter to kiss and hug his partner.
One couldn’t write a better script. Surely, that is an Olympic story that must be told, right? Not according to NBC.
The athlete in question is, of course, Australia’s Matthew Mitcham who snagged the gold medal in the Men’s 10 Platform Diving and did so on his final dive by posting the highest score ever given to a single dive during Olympic competition.
Curious why Matthew’s award ceremony and story weren’t gripping enough to make the NBC telecast (the medal ceremony was shown on their website) AfterElton.com spoke with Greg Hughes a spokesman for NBC Sports.
While the issue has been addressed and debated by various blogs and writers, until we contacted NBC they were unaware of the controversy. “I’m not aware of any controversy,” said Hughes. “Yours is the first call.”
When asked why at no point during the coverage did NBC mention Mitcham was gay or that his partner was in the stands, Hughes said, “In virtually every case, we don’t discuss an athlete’s sexual orientation.”
When it was pointed out that in fact the network does exactly that by telling viewers about Olympic athletes’ various spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, and even in one case a heterosexual “love triangle” Hughes responded, “Not in every case. Not every athlete has a personal discussion. I could show you 500 athletes we didn’t show. We don’t show everyone. We don’t show every ceremony.”
But surely, taking into account Mticham’s stunning come-from-behind victory, the historical significance of his achievement as a gay man, and his own personal history, it seems unlikely the vast majority of those other athletes truly have as compelling a story as Mitcham. Said Hughes, “How do you know that? How do you know that someone on the rowing team doesn’t have as compelling a story?”
Usain Bolt, Luxin Zhou, Sanya Richards
Pressed that it was hard to believe that there truly any other athletes with stories as compelling as Matthew’s, especially ones who single-handedly prevented the Chinese from sweeping all of the gold medals in an entire sport, Hughes would only say, “It’s not possible to cover the entire personal story of every athlete regarding their performance. … It’s just not possible to single out coverage. “
After that, Hughes offered no further comment.
Anyone watching NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics is aware how much time the network devoted to many athlete’s personal stories: Michael Phelp’s record setting eight Olympic gold medals and his relationship with his mother, Usain Bolt’s gold medals and world records, and even Sanya Richard’s relationship with her fiancée who plays for the New York Giants.
I must repeat my sentiments from an earlier 365gay.com story on Matt’s success. BOYCOTT NBC. Do Not Support their sponsors, their actors, or their newschannels. Do Not watch their spin-off cable channels. They OBVIOUSLY do not want us as viewers, so lets honor their policy decisions.
There were 14 Lesbian and Bi women, Open and Out Loud at the Olympics. NBC chose not to show their lives either.
Are you getting their message to us? Let’s send one back:
They have drawn the line in the sand against LBGT’s.
DO NOT WATCH NBC. WATCH THEIR RATINGS FALL and enjoy. Yes you’ll have to give up Heros. Yes you’ll have to turn of Leno (Who is a homophobe anyway)
Need another reason? They have proven, as is indicated by the clueless moron who responded to this Site’s questions, that they are sick homophobes with a history of disregarding everyone except Straight Mostly Whites.
Why? Babies for the Wars. They need to spupport the FUEHR – Herr Bush and his puppet masters need for bodies to throw into war.
Us gays, by and large, don’t make babies. Therefore our lives are worthless to the National Broadcasting Company and it’s owner: Gneral Electric – makers of the finest death machines of warfare.
It is no stretch of the imagination to understand NBC’s desire NOT to portray us as strong feisty people. No. We must be all sniffling weak pissants whom they can ignore.
General Electric: They Bring Good Lies to Life!
NBC. BOYCOTT. NOW.
At last count there were 28 responses to this story – - let’s keep it going, maybe with enough support we can get NBC to re-evaluate its’ policies or do you think we might be holding our collective breaths too much to expect a sincere apology?
I’m glad Mr. Jensen corrected himself at the end of the story regarding “the highest profile win ever by a gay man in an Olympic event”, to “only out” gay diver. American Greg Louganis won three gold medals(He swept the diving events!) @ the Seoul Olympics; only to be forced out of the closet by the scandel over his HIV status.
Also, I disagree with some comments about not caring if NBC covered the news as long as the news was available somewhere. In spite of the internaet, there are lots of lonely gay boys & lesbians out in fly-over country who are blocked; by ignorant parents, and official school computer policies; from viewing anything that would remotedly allow them to feel less isolated.
It’s no wonder that Mr.Mitcham was suffering from deression, the problem is endemic in the largest part of society that still marginalizes any accomplishment by any a GLBT person.
I would hopethat, not only 365GAY, but any & all members of the GLBT community would write to NBC to let them know we do not appreciate their squeamishness about an athletes sexual orientation.. it certainly did’t stop them from mentionaing the out lesbians in their comments & blogs…
I would guess that the boys at NBC are too embarrassed by Matthew’s story to tell it all. And are they biased? Of course, they are!
Honestly it doesn’t matter to me whether NBC covers his victory. As long as I hear it from a reputable source, it’s fine. It’s very difficult to cover an event as large as the Olympics. What matters is that I heard about it at all. Thank you, 365Gay for covering it. Now get out of NBC’s business. Honestly.
Funny that they always seems to include gay when it something negative, but neglect to include it on a positive story…hmmm.
I don’t think it had anything to do with the fact that he was gay, that they didn’t cover all the facts of Mitcham’s life. I think it had to do with the fact that he is not American and his name isn’t Michael Phelps.
I’m Canadian and we get both the US and Canadian telecasts of the events. If you wanted to watch some good sports with technical commentators you watch the CBC, if you wanted the full propaganda, US good China bad experience then you watched NBC.
What do you expect from the MSM–and NBC is the worst offender–they tailor the news to fit their agenda. And a compelling story about the travails of a gay athelete just didn’t fit their scenario.
This does not surprise me. I used to work for NBC’s parent company. It’s a horrible place for GLBT people. I cannot imagine a less supportive environment. Not knowing it was a controversy? Yeah right!
I think this is quite sad. I found out about Mr. Mitcham’s victory about 4 hours before it was shown in the primetime here in the states. I loomed over the NBC site looking for the dive. I mean, i wanna the highest rated dive in Olympic history. Regardless of whom Mr. Mitcham gives his heart to, that dive was spectular enough to garner some attention. However, i could not find it. So, i watched the dive on prime, which was truely awesome. However, after about 30 seconds after the score was released, they cut to the relay races.
This boggles my mind. If you can dedicate 3 or more minutes to someone who lost their wedding ring while playing, you can take 3 minutes to show the best dive in history & the story of the man who preformed it. I can understand NBC not overtly mentioning his sexuality. The states are still quite a conservative country, at least with other wealthy countries. I bet since it was shown during primetime, NBC would be afraid that some people might be offended & some people switching channels so that they do not have to explain to their 8 year old why two men were kissing. This fact alone makes me sad.
But regardless of his male lover, his dive & story were compelling enough to get some major air time. He quite diving, than came back to win a gold & stop the Chinese streak. Awesome stuff, simply awesome. A total rip off that his amazing story was not shared. It could inspire people, a lot more than Sanya Richards.
The answer to your last question is obvious: NBC is homophobic. They’re afraid that recognizing anyone as gay if that person is a sports champion would undermine the bigoted American mindset that there can be no superb athletes who are gay. It’s sick and it’s typical of institutionalized prejudice. This would never have happened inE Eurpose of any society that has advanced beyond the Neanderthal age.
Trace and All
As far as NBC goes remember it is financed by Republican backed Dollars do you really think they would DARE to Show that on National TV HORROR of HORROR’S a Openly GAY man WINNING a Gold Medal. Little Jimmy Joe will grow up to Idolize a Gay Man and Become just like him!!
Untill the LGBT communitie unites Peacefully against the Politico’s and Positively changes our Image we as a Community can expect to see this kind of Non -Coverage in any Sporting Event. More Gay Athletes need to come fwrd to be recognized. That may mean a Backlash from the Christian Radical Right not to mention Athletic Sponsorship, however if more are visable and More are Endorsed by Sports Co’s. then just who will win out? Money Talks remember that.
The answer to your question is because sports in general is very homophobic as are the directors, producers and commentators. If a news agency is not covering gay issues with the same integrity as you do the “straight” issues than something else is at point then just “not being able to cover every story.” News services around the world knew Mr. Mitcham was gay; time and time again the point was made that he was very open about “to anyone that would ask.” That leaves their reason to either sloppy journalism or homophobia. Mr. Mitcham’s victory was in every way news of the first degree. So I defer homophobia being the reason and suggest that a general boycott of NBC should be the response.
Alex: I agree. Would they have said something if he were a yank? Somehow I doubt it.
Secound: I don’t buy the “We didn’t have time” argument because I KNOW I saw at least two if not three profiles on Nastia Lunkin or however she spells her name. But we can’t even mention in a little blurb that Matt is the games ONLY out gay male athlete? Not even “And Matt Mitchem of Australia, the games only gay athlete; today prevented the Chinese from sweeping all eight medals in diving”? I’m not buying it.
The simple question is whether or not Mitcham’s sexuality, in conjunction with his accomplishment, is actually “news.” I for one believe it is, in the context of having overcome adversity and upsetting the expectations of a nation (and the world), and that NBC failed in their duty to share this news with their viewers, whether outright or by language that would get around any “shame” brought to their Bejing hosts.