I’m getting ready for work this afternoon and I hear a blurb on the news that China “faked” part of their opening ceremonies for the Olympics. Rather than continue watching the crappy local station, I get on the computer and Google the phrase, coming up with pages of “news” stories about how the fireworks displaying the footprints of the 29 Olympiads was fake, fake, fake.
Considering I watched this part of the opening ceremonies, and heard several of the announcers talk about the “cinematic effects,” I wasn’t confused as to whether or not this was “real.” It wasn’t, for me, the viewer, sitting at home. For those in Beijing, it was, because they saw something similar, but the hosting country didn’t want a helicopter flying through them, so they were added later for the benefit of people who couldn’t be there in person.
How this constitutes as news is beyond me, and the fact that so many bloggers, local and regional stations, web sites, and radio cling to this as somehow representative of China’s deceit of the rest of the world is really pathetic. I don’t feel my “experience” was somehow less, knowing that they added a digital representation of what was there later in the day, after the helicopter photographed the city.
