The Media: the True Olympic Loser

It doesn't pay to advertise the coming of a miracle, because more often than not, miracles don't happen on command.

The U.S. Olympic hockey team did not produce a miracle. But why were we all so surprised?

Roone Arledge is losing money through his teeth these days. The first week of the 1984 Winter Olympics was a television ratings fiasco. This year's audiences are 50 percent smaller than four years ago, and ABC, which carries the games, has been continually swamped by competition from other networks.

One of the reasons provided as justification for the poor ratings is the weather, blistering winds and a catastrophic snowfall, which have forced Olympic organizers to cancel or reschedule certain events, thus making coverage sporadic and uninspiring.

But most analysts explain that the current lack of viewer interest results from heightened expectations of the U.S. hockey team. The squad has been heavily promoted by the networks and other media, especially through product pushing advertisers.

For the past three months, ABC has aired clip after clip of the breathtaking sequence when Mike Eruzione netted the goal that hoisted the 1980 U.S. hockey team towards the gold at the Soviet Union's expense. Pamdemonium! National pride! Miracle on ice! Blah, blah, blah...will it happen again? became the inevitable supposition.

The fervoe that surrounds Team U.S.A. has created a void. America's other stars--not to mention all other international personalities and aspects of the Olympics--have been underexposed, thus prevented from fostering widespread enthusiasm about the Olympics as a whole.

Who is Flaine Zayak from Paramus, New Jersey? Who is America's most proficient cross-country skier? Tell me about bobsledding or the East German threat. What's lugging?

The media blitz which has centered around this year's hockey team has resulted in the American public having a very narrow focus of attention. Simultaneously, this exposure has encouraged the widespread misperception that our guys could do it again, despite the fact that they never proved to be a dominating force to begin with. The only similarity between this year's and the 1980 squad is the letters on the jerseys.

In all its exhibition matches, the Olympic hockey team barely broke the .500 mark, and this record grew out of wins and losses against local college squads and the Soviet "B" team competition. The Olympic front line consists of three 17- or 18-year-old boys just out of high school.

To the experts who appreciated the deficiencies of this year's hockey team, it must not have come as a total surprise that Canada upset the squad and Czechoslovakia trounced them. They were even unable to muster a victory over Norway.

But to the superficial, and probably unknowledgeable spectator, expectation proved inconsistent with reality. All that was witnessed before the Olympics began was the hockey squad. Team U.S. of A., plastered all over every magazine cover and splashed on the nation's TV screens.

So the impression received by fair-weather spectators--a group which probably composes the bulk of any Olympic audience--grew out of a completely super-field and symbolic reference to our hockey team, at the expense of the more profound and substantive elements which determine the Olympics' true character and significance.

With such an unstable base built to support an entire national interest, it's no wonder that when the ice hockey team came crashing down, so did America's interest in the Olympics as a whole.

America has been betrayed by the media.

The media's limited coverage reflected an assumption that the public couldn't appreciate anything more substantive than images that pander to the base instincts of a one-dimensional nationalism.

Because of this strategy. America only cared about one of many, many aspects of the Olympics: its hockey team. If we had concerned ourselves with more, we'd now be watching the stuff on television.

The media, as an institution, has the ability to mold the population's value and thought processes. In the case of the Olympics, the media's minimization of all events but hockey has had a direct impact on the public's interpretation of the Games.

Out minds--at the risk of sounding melodramatic--were twisted, disfigured and nursed by this omnipresent institution.

Given the power of the media--it would be quite difficult never to turn on the TV--the networks should learn from this mistake of placing so much emphasis on only one highly visible subject. The Olympic coverage would be interpreted as a call for change.

But that change appears unlikely, because the media, in general, is shallow shortsighted in its interpretation of events. Instead of being the exception, the Olympic coverage America has received is the rule: one dimensionalism pervades everywhere throughout the world of mass media.

The current presidential campaign illustrates this phenomenon. When the East Coast editors read about Walter Mondale's huge lead in the polls over other democratic contenders, about whom do we read? Only Walter Mondale, despite the fact that the general election is still 10 months away. But Mondale provokes the greatest immediate sense of interest, so the media practically disallows consideration of other candidates ideas or legitimacy. Only if a Hart or an Askew performs well in New Hampshire, a starkly noticeable primary, will the print and broadcast media respond?

One should pay heed to the message which the Olympics forced upon us, because it smacks us right in the face. And like the media, it's easier for us to identify with a starting example of such a deficiency.

Because of the Olympics, we discovered a shortcoming in the media. Let's not forget it.