SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: The other day in the "Olympic city" of Sydney, an extraordinary thing happened: A swimmer from a country with which not many are familiar, shot to fame. As I watched the news that day, I wondered how the mainstream press in Australia were going to cover it. This wasn't an ordinary story about winners in the pool feeding Australia's national obsession. And as I cringed in anticipation, I was not disappointed.

Eric Mossambani from Equatorial Guinea became famous that day, not because he was the fastest or the greatest, but because he swam the slowest time in Olympic history — on his own. Mossambani's two fellow competitors in that heat had been disqualified, and he had to swim alone. But the crowd at the Olympic Aquatic Center cheered him on loudly as he swam, and it was what he said "kept him going" even though at one point he thought he was "going to drown."

It's a beautiful human story — one of those bound to be repeated on Australian television screens for some time to come as an example of our good "sportspersonship." Already it's been dubbed by the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games an "Olympic moment."

But is it?

Beneath the accolades and positive news stories about this "moment" in the commercial Australian media there was an undercurrent of mockery. While Mossambani provided an opportunity to the media for an Olympic story with a difference; it seemed that that difference was seen as a license for racism. Amid discussions about his "speed" in the pool, disdainful references were made on sports shows about his "ordinary Speedos" and "goggles." It's perhaps what the Special Broadcasting Authority (SBS) radio's Rufus Akindola from the African program is referring to when he says: "They are biased against other countries, particularly Africa." A media submerged in nationalism and its obsession with sport — swimming being its holy of holies — characteristically lost what could have been an opportunity to bring some depth to Australian sports reporting.

So how does the Australian media deal with a swimmer from a tiny country with a population equal to a few suburbs of Sydney, an infant mortality rate of 118 per 1,000 and one of the most historically brutal regimes in Africa? How does it deal with the obvious inequity between Mossambani and the well-trained swimmers from Western countries?

The answer is it can't, and it hasn't been able to for a long time. It is why journalists from the Australian "language" (non-English) media respond the same way whenever I ask about how the Australian media is reporting their country. "Not much" or "not at all" is the usual reply. The mantra on the streets here in the Olympic live-sites (entertainment venues) is "Aussie Aussie Aussie!" Commercial radio carries stories about how the International Olympic Committee thinks Australians are good and generous sports audiences and how we've had few problems with a transport system that's moving hundreds of thousands of people daily. There's nothing wrong in the Olympic city, and there's little room for anything else, such as cultural diversity or cultural dissent.

And the media are the perfect tools to control the entire affair.

Australia's Olympic station is the channel 7 network. It's a commercial network and has exclusive license to film, record and report the Olympics. Australia's tabloid paper, the Mirror Telegraph, has similar print rights.

English Only

While this has not entirely precluded other Australian media from gaining accreditation to the games, there have some major oversights. SBS radio, which broadcasts in 68 languages, got one media pass to the games. Other Australian language papers have not been even as lucky as SBS.

So we've ended up with a narrow vision of our identity, conveyed through our almost uniformly white sports heroes. Our Olympic visitors can be forgiven for thinking we're too parochial, if not all the same. And our culturally diverse communities can also be forgiven for thinking they don't exist.

"If you watch the coverage, it's all about Australia here. I feel there's no objectivity," Akindola says. "I'm not surprised about the lack of reporting on other countries. It's always been like that."

It's a sentiment echoed by Sydney's Egypt News' sports reporter Ramy Selim. He hasn't been able to get accreditation to cover the games and says that the Egyptian community in Sydney is "hopeful the Australian media will give more attention to other participating countries."

Akindola of SBS says he has heard many complaints about the lack of reporting on African countries, and he points out the example of the women's 100 meters, won by Australian Cathy Freeman. "Falilat Ogunkoya from Nigeria came second," he notes. "They didn't even show her face. They didn't talk about her at all!

"It's all about winners," he adds. Conceivably, that's why the Egyptian team has been ignored by a media too busy covering the successes of the Australian team. The team has not won any medals, "but they are trying their best" says Selim, who has been attending the games as a spectator, taking notes and following the news on different Internet Web sites. It's a tough job to report on an event you have no access to, and although Selim feels hindered by this, he says he still manages to report what most readers are interested in: the results, with pictures and reports.

Akindola says his reports rely heavily on a Sydney journalist based at the games with the Australian Associated Press (AAP), who has been able to line up interviews and assist with backgrounders. Otherwise, he too goes through the papers, radio and wire sources to report on the African teams. "We have only one program a week. We could have done much better, but we are doing what we can afford to do," he adds in exasperation.

Media Dissent Does Exist

So is there any opposition to the Olympic city's self-congratulatory fixation and lack of dissent in the media?

Yes, there is, and it's come in the form of the Indy Media Center (IMC). Located in inner-city Sydney, it's become a magnet for activists and protesters who want to create a dynamic political environment in Australia. Anyone with a story can upload material from her or his home or the center itself directly onto the site without any filtering or editing. The center is committed to open publishing and no censorship; one of its slogans is: "Everyone is a witness, everyone is a journalist."

Indy Media, a name devised by the anti-World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, seeks to "provide a discussion forum with multimedia capabilities," according to one of its spokespeople, Andrew Nicholson.

Asked about the image of Sydney that the center wants to project amid the Olympic hype, Nicholson says: "We don't want to promote anything except open dialogue — if the site projects an image at all, it comes from the sum of parts of the individuals who contribute."

It's a radical idea in today's Australian media environment, where there's little room for dissent or thoughtful analysis. Nicholson points out that "media ownership in Australia is very concentrated. Corporate media is only concerned with advertising and profits; free flow of information is a secondary concern, if at all." He believes the press "doesn't talk about any issues relevant to many people. When it does, it basically lies to suit the interests of the possessing classes, like the transnational corporations and government."

Despite the lack of coverage by the Australian media, the Indy media site has received a good response from the international media. And while Nicholson admits that "media interest is notoriously fickle," he says Indy media will continue its commitment to an open process that is "part of redesigning the dynamic of society toward open discussion."

And the future? He's looking for "a more cooperative and interconnected network of media activists," he says, with enough inspiration for people to gain "public control of the [media] networks."

Perhaps then we will see what Selim points out about Egyptian spectators who cheered both Australian and Egyptian athletes: "I think it unites our multicultural Australia more and more." Perhaps then too we can see an African perspective on sport that isn't focused on swimming, as Akindola says, but on sports "where you'll find many African participants, such as soccer."

And maybe at that moment in the future, the Australian media will really deal with cultural diversity and dissent as part of daily life rather than the current show of indifference on our screens in the "Olympic City" today.
 

AS THE MEDIA WATCH THE WORLD, WE WATCH THE MEDIA.

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