Journalists Banned From Using Smartphones At 2014 Sochi Olympics?

First time accepted submitter SlongNY writes in with a story that journalists may be banned from taking photos or videos with smartphones at the 2014 Olympics. "'Journalists using mobile phones to film athletes or spectators will be considered a serious violation and will result in cancellation of accreditation,' said Vasily Konov, head of the state-run R-Sport news agency, which controls accreditation at the games. According to Buzzfeed, Mr. Konov later denied that he had said the ban was in place. Radio Free Europe, however, also reported him as saying the same thing."

Comments

How is this a surprise?

[slycer9]

The Olympic Committee has been pushing for YEARS that they be the sole source of any information, media or other materials originating from the events. It's only a matter of time before they ban external reporters altogether and simply provide their own press releases throughout the days from their own staffers.

Re:How is this a surprise?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Olympic Committee has been pushing for YEARS that they be the sole source of any information, media or other materials originating from the events. It's only a matter of time before they ban external reporters altogether and simply provide their own press releases throughout the days from their own staffers.

Good. Let it collapse under that bullshit rule then.

Go ahead and start banning something that we struggle every four years to continue to justify from every perspective. The cities left behind in the aftermath of hosting an Olympics would certainly agree. It's far from the financial whirlwind everyone wants to believe it is.

And the only thing I'm going to be surprised over with these games is if Sochi somehow doesn't turn it into a complete clusterfuck. Between their logistical planning to the anti-gay sentiment being broadcast over these games as if it were Nazi Germany again, I don't hold much hope for success.

Re:How is this a surprise?

[mobby_6kl]

Well, as long as they make taking photos with a tablet an offense punishable by death, carried out on the spot, I don't have a problem with the rule.

Follow the money

[Anonymous Coward]

If independent footage comes out, R-sport doesn't get paid for it. Gotta have that cash.

Re:Follow the money

[Alain Williams]

Exactly: the olympics is, to a large extent, about money in one way or another. I sometimes think that the IOC would quickly ditch the athletes if they could find a way of having the games without them.

Re:Follow the money

[houghi]

"to a large extent"? Seriously? Do you think that? It is ONLY about money.

The Olympics Trump All World Governments.

[rueger]

Having lived through the 2010 games in Vancouver, I can fully believe this story. The corporations behind the Olympics answer to no-one, and respect only the laws that they create for themselves.

Local customs and laws, charters, and regulations are ignored or flouted without so much as a "Sorry," and the great armies of renta-cops rule the roost.

Re:The Olympics Trump All World Governments.

[Solandri]

In this case it's not the corporations. It's the International Olympic Committee (IOC) which puts on the games. They sell everything - exclusive coverage, exclusive food rights, exclusive t-shirt sales, etc. The corporations are as much a victim as the press and public. You pay lots of money for the privilege of covering/attending the Olympics, and in exchange the IOC makes damn sure nobody else infringes on the privilege they've sold you. Including local merchants who've been selling in the area long before the Olympics ever came. Have a store named "Olympic Sporting Goods" which is so named because it's on Olympic St? Gotta cover up your name during the Olympics.

Yeah it sucks that only McDonalds can sell fast food on the Olympics venue, but can you really blame them for kicking out Joe the hot dog stand vendor? They paid the IOC huge bucks to become the official exclusive food sponsor. The IOC makes every right it sells exclusive if they can, because it makes a bidding war where they can extract the most money possible from the corporate sponsors. If you want to stop it, you need to put a leash on the IOC. Don't give them rights that infringe on the rights of pre-existing businesses. But cities are so desperate to host the Olympics they'll service the IOC like a $2 whore and and give the IOC anything it asks for.

When Pierre de Coubertin came up with the idea of the modern Olympics, he prohibited professional athletes because he didn't want money to get in the way of a competition where each individual was simply trying to do his/her best. Unfortunately he didn't foresee that the athletes weren't the only ones who could be corrupted by money.

Ought to be a real party

[amightywind]

What can go wrong with a Russian occupied war zone 20km south in Abkhazia, 200 km from a civil war zone in Chechnya, in a country run by a KGB trained despot who hates homosexuals, with no phones, and no outside communications? Ought to be a real party.

Re:Bash the Russians.

[TechyImmigrant]

Was that your homework assignment for a rhetoric class or do you actually go around talking like that while people quietly wish you would go somewhere else?

Money

[jklovanc]

This is about money and without money the Olympics will not survive.

Look at it this way, the hosting country is signing on for the following:
1. Massive infrastructure build.
2. Massive security costs. Thanks PLO and others.
3. Massive costs for accommodations and food.
4. Massive costs for transportation.
Add all that together and then realize that it all has to be recouped within the few weeks of the Olympics. It is easy to see why the IOC is very watchful of people infringing on their income streams. If you want the Olympics to continue the broadcast rights need to be worth paying for.

Re:Money

[BeShaMo]

Fuck the Olympics. All the nice core values it was created to support, Excellence, Friendship and Respect have been steamrolled by the increasing escalation in cost, the need/desire for massive all encompassing sponsorship deals and the general arrogant douchery of the IOC.

At most the host city will benefit from some upgraded infrastructure, probably long overdue, but very rarely will the host come close to recouping the cost they have put in, and a lot of the money goes to waste, meaning that if they had spend the money purely on improving their citizens live, it would have gone much further. Supporters counter this by saying that the host will get more back in the long term from business promotion and tourism, but this claim is dubious at best, but being a very hard thing to quantify it's also impossible to refute, but considering it's mostly held in cities that are already some of the most popular tourist destination and business hubs, it's hard to see what real difference is being made.

At the end of the day, the Olympics have very successfully branded themselves as a must have event, however the only ones who really benefits are the sponsors who gets a venue where a country's normal safeguards and laws are completely nullifies, the politicians who get to stand on the grandest stage of all and proclaim how awesome they are and the of course the members of IOC who gets to take home fat bribes.

Again, fuck the Olympics. The great white elephant of the modern age.

Re:Article Subject is WRONG

[grcumb]

This has nothing to do specifically with smartphones... they aren't allowing any "non-professional" media recording devices for the media. They obviously can still tweet/text/call at the events. It's the same as telling your fast food employees not to take pictures of customers food in the back with their cell phones. If they pull put a professional camera it looks better and nobody would complain. This isn't news, move along...

There is everything wrong with this. With recording as with all things, handsome is as handsome does. I have a photojournalist friend, recently returned from Afghanistan, whose primary camera is a little Canon point-and-shoot. You could scoff and talk about Good Enough, except that he's used a similar camera to provide a nice two page spread in Vanity Fair. Yes, he also walks around with a vintage Leica pano camera and a few other bits of exotic kit as well, but when it comes to getting shots, sometimes the best camera is the one you have in your hand.