Yes, whining is a media specialty. That goes to the 10th power for an Olympics.

Kevin Blackistone, writing for the American Journalism Review, doesn’t have much sympathy for members of the media who don’t have Four Seasons quality when it comes to hotel rooms.

Blackistone writes:

This is what happens when a bunch of American journalists who, if they do travel abroad avoid second- or third-world countries unless they include some cordoned-off all-inclusive resort, conflating less-than five-star or suburban America or urban-bubble American accommodations (like gritty re-gentrified DC with a French bistro on every corner) into international stories of shock and awe. It isn’t news in parts of the world that the sewer system can’t handle paper products and you are asked to deposit toilet paper in a bin. Even here in idyllic Montgomery County, Maryland, nestled next to our nation’s capital, the sanitary commission recently warned residents not to dispose in the toilet those “flushable” wipes you wash your toddler’s bottom with because they frequently clogged the sewer system.

Later he writes:

Journalists should cover stories, not create them. But what we’ve been treated to the past few days out of Sochi are dog-bites-journalists’ stories that impact no one but them.

If American journalists, in particular, want to write about living conditions in the part of the world they’ll be living in this month, they should venture out of the Sochi bubble and see how Russians elsewhere live. (In South Africa at the World Cup, most American journalists lived with U.S. Soccer officials in a gated, guarded enclave that resembled any galleria shopping neighborhood in the U.S.) If athletes were suffering, that would be one thing. But they aren’t. Reuters reported athletes are pleasantly surprised against the reports of the appalled journalists, some of whom I count as friends and other as acquaintances.

*******

Meanwhile, Steve Politi of the Newark Star-Ledger had an amusing piece about covering skiing. Not his favorite assignment.

There is nothing worse than covering skiing. There is nothing close to being worse than covering skiing. I’m sure this strong of a statement will lead to discussion among my peers in the industry, and perhaps a journalist from another country could offer up something that would compete, but they are wrong. Skiing sucks in ways that no other sport can match.

Apparently, you can’t see much if you attempt to watch actual skiing.

Then, you stand at the bottom of the hill to watch, in the snow. This is probably better than, say, perched in a tree halfway up the mountain, but that means we literally watched three seconds of the Olympic downhill event live. Which is a short amount of time even for a sport that lasts two minutes.

So then the media, corralled in a small area between red plastic fences, will watch with the rest of the fans on a large, grainy TV screen as the announcer yells insightful things like “OH, HERE HE COMES” and “HE IS REALLY FLYING NOW.” Then, the skier flies around the corner, looks up at the scoreboard and does one of two things every single time.

1. Throws up his arms in celebration.

2. Puts his hands on his helmet in defeat.

Hope Politi’s rooms is OK.