IOC to China: Give sportswriters their Internet

April 1st, 2008 | Posted by PostmanR

There have been a few hiccups heading into the Olympic Games this summer in China. Namely, they’ve had to do with toilets, which is always fun. That seems resolved now. (Phew.) But alas, there are still more troubles ahead, more battles to fight in our quest to Westernize the grand country. You know how China blocks anything cool on the Internet?

Well, the IOC is fighting the filters.

Beijing routinely blocks Chinese access to some foreign news websites and blogs, a practice it has stepped up since rioting broke out over two weeks ago in Tibet.

Kevan Gosper, vice chairman of the IOC coordinating commission, said restricting access to the Internet during the games “would reflect very poorly” on the host nation.

“This morning we discussed and insisted again,” Gosper said. “Our concern is that the press (should be) able to operate as it has at previous games.”

Gosper said the Chinese had an obligation under the “host city agreement” to provide Internet access to the 30,000 accredited and non-accredited journalists expected to attend.

[ … ]

When asked about Gosper’s comments, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said China’s “management” of the Internet followed the “general practice of the international community.”

She acknowledged that China bans some Internet content, and said other countries did the same. She declined to say if the Internet would be unrestricted for journalists during the Olympics.

As a blogger and purveyor of all things Internet, I back the IOC here. (If there was this kind of block on foreign media in the US, how would I get all my rugby news? Also: what else are they supposed to do to pass time during the floor routines?) Because really, an Olympic Games where AP sports columnist of the year Bill Plaschke isn’t able to use the Internet to its fullest capabilities is an Olympic Games that will severely lack in quality coverage.

I need my overwrought, confusing ledes mixed with sentence fragments, and I need them this summer, thank you very much.