NBC Criticism Offbase

To the Editors of The Crimson:

It's interesting to see that a journalist such as Maggie Tucker criticizes NBC and its Olympic coverage for sticking to one of the golden rules of journalism ("Coverage Fails to Inspire." August 4, 1992). That rule goes something like this: Follow the story. NBC was hardly the only news organization to spotlight Kim Zmeskal Newsweek even placed her on its cover. The fact is that she is well-known and was expected to do very well in her competition. The story is that she did anything but well, finishing tenth in the overall competition. Of course NBC focus on her as opposed to the unknown gold medalist Trent Dimas.

I would also suggest that an informal survey of Tucker's housemates is a bizarre and inappropriate means of comparison. Nationwide, the television ratings for these Olympics is higher than ever before, so apparently someone likes the network's approach. It's difficult to fill six hours of nightly television, which NBC does during the course of the Olympics. In between events, some of the pieces will be corny at worst and touching at best. Tucker simply worries too much about the whose thing ("Somewhere along the line something went terribky wrong with NBC's Olympic coverage"). If she would sit and enjoy the Olympic spectacle rather than hover miserably each night over the television screen, she might actually enjoy what she sees. Iris Witherspoon