Doesn't anyone care about silver and bronze or even 4th place in the Olympics? Certainly not NBC, which consistently ignores many competitors achieving less than gold and those who hail from other countries. Perhaps NBC host Bob Costas should be banned for 24 hrs (or permanently) for saying the word "gold".
One example of NBC eyes focused only on the gold prize was coverage of the women's 10 meter platform diving. In edited replay prime time coverage NBC showed only divers from USA, Canada and China. Guess what? Mexico, yes, Mexico, took 4th and 5th place. The US diver finished 9th.
Given the large Mexican-American population in the US (as of 2006 28.3 million US residents were considered Mexican-American, 9% of the US population, and the fastest growing segment) you'd think NBC would key in to that. Certainly the advertisers on NBC do that (Chevy’s pick-up truck commercial ends with a Mexican-American gentlemen saying in Spanish, “Este es mi truque.” This is my truck.) Perhaps the Mexican team's swimming suits weren't cute enough to show on TV.
It happened again for the men’s 10 meter platform diving event 2 days later. After the semi-final round with a Mexican diver in 9th place and Cuban divers in 11th and 15th places. The US diver was in 5th place. And in the finals round the Cuban diver wasn't shown even though he was in second place after the first round. He later dropped out of medial contention.
A thoughtful colleague of mine from work reacted in the following way on a Facebook posting: “I watched the diving finals with my daughters. We anticipated that NBC would show at least a couple of dives by the two Mexican ladies that had received bronze in the synchronized diving competition earlier in the week. We were very disappointed. I didn't know how to explain it to my girls. For one brief moment I started to question the world's perception of the positive influence of Latinas. Then I remembered what the Latina Women of Erie accomplish each and every day. It's more than gold, silver or bronze. It's priceless.”
I’ll let her have the last word. (End of post.)
