´óÏó´«Ã½

Cue the moaners. This won't be enough reassurance. Those that are going to "ignore every second of the games" will be on to whinge about the latest Olympics story. Could have been better spent on xyz, ABCTown in The North won't benefit at all.....zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Roger,

Your blog is well intentioned but just raises the expectations of the anti-olympic lobby.

Better that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ ensures enough non-olympic stories & programming is maintained.

Treat the Olympics as far as possible as just another sports event after all how often do you report traffic congestion at Aintree or Wimbledon on the national news service? There will be plenty of time for an Olympic post mortem.

This unbiased determination to search out and report the truth is what makes the ´óÏó´«Ã½ brilliant. I also know that the coverage of the sport won't be jingoistic like that of the Australian media in 2000. I trust the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to get the balance right between support for Team GB and understanding of where the big global stories emerge whether that be Bolt, Phelps or an Eric Moussambani.

I felt this article was a bit naive to be honest with a touch of conceit.

"We will never let our partnerships dictate our journalism"

This just isn't true and I would hope that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has learnt from it's quite frankly appalling (and some would say amateurish) portrayal of the sale of F1 to Sky which it tried to spin as "good for viewers" as an example of where the Corporation has compromised it's own impartiality and had an agenda other than relaying the facts. Facts like the free to air Channel 4 offering the same money as Sky were not revealed initially and for the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to now tell me that they never compromise their journalism is just not accurate and again smacks of spin over fact.

Nevertheless I do trust the ´óÏó´«Ã½ much more than any of the Murdoch media outlets or the virtually-ficticious newspapers (which all seem to have political agendas) and I expect them to show the Olympics "warts and all".

Oh give it a rest will ya,polluting blogs about your off topic gripes about the f1 deal is quite frankly rude, boring and as a matter of fact is turning people away from your cause, seriously i have had enough of reading comments on bbc blogs but giving up because they contain off topic f1 comments!!!

Not everyone cares about the f1 deal, alot of people are actually glad that there is less f1 on the ´óÏó´«Ã½.

My comment wasn't meant to be about the F1 sale which quite frankly had to happen and as a Sky subscriber I was unaffected. It was about the way the ´óÏó´«Ã½ portrayed it as "good for viewers" and ignored all questions on their F1 forum.

They then tell me in this article that they "never let our partnerships dictate our journalism". The F1 debacle proved this wasn't true so used this as an example.

#1 is absolutely 100% spot on.

Well I for one would like the BRITISH Broadcasting Company to be truly BRITISH and get behind the British athletes with all the support they can muster during the games.

I don't think there is anything wrong with this at all and I hope the journalists and commentators are as passionate and supportive of our athletes as I will be!

I have absolutely no problem with the ´óÏó´«Ã½ being robust and impartial; but impartial means equal fairness. So please, unlike some aspects of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ [business and politics particularly come to mind] please ensure the sports coverage of the Olympics is truly impartial and fair and not be negative just for the sake of it because that generates better headlines.

Pity the ´óÏó´«Ã½ isn't going to try and be impartial about the Jubilee .

how about delbert wilkins you shut up? you blatantly read the daily mail. the Olympics is a massive waste of cash. the world is in melt down and we are paying for this rubbish. no one even likes running or triple jump, when was the last time anyone went "just gonna pop down to my local athletics venue to watch the pole vault"? never.

Like #8 I too want the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to be biased towards British competitors. Get behind the event and Team GB.
tyrrell88, just because you don't like something doesn't mean that any money spent on it is a waste of cash. With your skills of judging posters choice of daily journal, I'm interested, what paper do you think I read?

Aunty Bebe, how prudish to say you will be inpartial. You are the BRITISH Broadcasting Company, when we are winning praise us to the hilt, shout it from the rooftops. Console us when we do not win a medal. Go down the route of 1 minute for the ninner and 1 minute each for all the losers in the race and I will switch you off. Oh I forgot you have a responsibility to produce the feed for the rest of the world. I suggest you have two streams, one for us, who will put up with the congestion but want to applaud our successes and one for the rest of the world. Just show London as clean, sunny and a great place to come to. Do not give a window to all those who will try and use it as a poublicity event to all their minority clauses. Good luck.

its not about the fact that i don't like it lalaloon. we are in the middle of the biggest recession ever. we could have used that money to create long term jobs for real people. not that we ever do this anyway but you have to admit that the money could have been spent on something more important.

Also, the bit about the north annoyed me from delbert wilkins. this country is so londoncentric is unreal, what are we in the north going to benefit from this?

Apologies for the spelling errors!!

tyrol88. The building, equiping and decommissioning/recommissioning of the housing and sports facilities adds up to the largest contstruction project in the UK for many years. It is equivalent to the Cross rail project, T5 in Heathrow, T1/2 in Heathrow, ewc, etc. It spawned many, many jobs, not including all the jobs and extra money that will flow into the UK during the games. We have another shopping centre, we have legacy public buildings that make our lives fuller. We need more money put into infrastructure not less.

yeh you do. you. LONDON. what have we got? nothing is the answer. and as for the jobs, note how i said long term.

So is the ´óÏó´«Ã½ feeling a twinge of anxiety about the GB football team yet? After all, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has never had to promote a 'blackleg' British team on British soil before. If there is no agreement with the FAW/SFA/IFAW before July, will the ´óÏó´«Ã½ report the fact that the team is 'unendorsed'? Remember the Triesman agreement, ´óÏó´«Ã½? The one you never mention in your reports?

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ commentators clearly will not be impartial during the Olympics, they know it, we know it and you know it. Why bother pretending any different?

does nobody in the north remember the 2002 Commonwealth games and how much they benefitted the rest of the country?

Do I trust the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to provide impartial news coverage of the Olympics ? I think not .. for the last 5 years the ´óÏó´«Ã½ have become more and more obsessed with British medals (and gold ones at that) with a barely concealed contempt for less than medal winning performances, and extremely limited interest shown in the rest of the field (athletes of other nations). The Olympics for me (a non-athlete) are about taking part in a global sporting celebration, the athletes on the other hand are understandably trying to win. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ commentary should be 'positioned' closer to my viewpoint than to the athletes viewpoint, as far as I am concerned.

I am English, born in Lancashire, and proud of it. I'd just like the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to fairly present the sporting events in the true spirit of the Olympic ideal.

Wow! Thank goodness that apart from Tyrell88 the professional moaners seem to have steered clear. Long may it continue - we have a great party to look forward to, lets enjoy it and welcome the world.
As you asked, never read the Daily Mail, not that I believe that's here not there. I also don't live within 100 miles of London. Just telling it how I see it. We committed to do it in 2005 not as if we can pull out now!

#21 Roger Mosey, what you are saying about the ´óÏó´«Ã½ commentary 'willing on the British contestants for gold', .... for many people that will detract from the overall coverage of the events. The events are about individuals (or individual groups), lets not make it just about how many golds we get as a nation!

I am hoping the ´óÏó´«Ã½ will not give the publicity to the minority groups who will be intent on making their views known to all. I am sure at some point in time, a small group or 2 will use the olympic profile to make a statement which will be irrelavent to the majority of people.

The only reason to mention a small (less than 20 people) group is if they kidnap John Inverdale and stop him from presenting! They would then deserve a medal!!

Sadly the ´óÏó´«Ã½ cannot wait for some sort of grief for the games, in fact I am sure they will have journalist especially looking for problems. Whern Athens were preparing for the games there were constant stories about lack of prepardeness, venues not ready etc. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ were willing this to befall London, but so far the ´óÏó´«Ã½ have been foiled, the preparation has gone well, with the Olympic commmittee impressed. So far the ´óÏó´«Ã½ have been denied their Athens moments with London, so once the games begin, they will be more determined to find fault. I for one can't wait for the Olympics, hope the ´óÏó´«Ã½ don't bugger things up with doom and gloom.

Will this bbc coverage be as impartial as wimbledon when all they bang on about is Andy Murray and is he going to win this year?"

If you can keep the likes of Jonathan Davies - Welsh Rugby Fan and part time commentator - off the box, it will be a good start.

Please lets have experts talking about performance rather than allowing them to shout encouragement and instructions for their team over the ´óÏó´«Ã½ airways.

I commend Roger for his ambition but I fear he lacks the tools (commentators) to deliver the impartiality that he desires.

One way of bringing individual performance to the attention of the viewing public is 'in real time, during the event' compare the time / score of each athlete against their own personal best time / score. The swimming often show a graphic on screen showing world record pace, but thats for the field as a whole. If you want to bring out the individual performances in the swimming for example you could show graphics tailored to each athlete in his/her swim lane showing performance relative to personal best during the race. OK, you might only show this during replay analysis of an event. Other events might utilise graphs of personal performance for the athletes during the event, shown in a window, eg 10000m or the decathlon etc.

So it's an article stating that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ will report the news impartially.

Doth protest too much, me thinks

I was hoping you DID mean impartiality during sporting events. There are few things more boring than the relentless sentimental chauvinism of ´óÏó´«Ã½ commentators during sporting events involving British performers. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ should treat all competitors equally, regardless of where they're from. Who cares whether a Briton wins or not? The Olympics is about seeing the best in the world. Very often the best will not be from Britain, but who gives a jot about that? The ´óÏó´«Ã½ should celebrate excellence regardless of its provenance and honour all those who compete in accordance with the Olympic ideals.

Roger, you mean the ´óÏó´«Ã½ will not be anti British/ English & report impartially, find this hard to believe.

A new shopping centre? The shopping centre has nothing to do with the Olympics! Lots of jobs? On the contrary, short terms construction jobs very few of which went to people from the East End.

Sky recently analysed the costs of the Olympics at £24billion. The claims for legacy are simply rubbish. The housing for the Athletes Village was going to be built anyway, more of it and not at public expense. There are no transport infrastructure improvements, both the DLR link to Canning Town and the Overground were going to be built anyway. The new park is not the largest in Europe for 150 years as the ODA goes on saying. The Olympics does not stimulate sports participation and there are no health benefits. Tourism is likely to decline, as was seen in previous Games, because other tourists stay away. The park has not been properly cleaned up and is covered with a plastic sheet warning developers further remediation is needed. A part of London has been surrounded with an electric fence and getting on for £2billion will be spent on security for this three week jamboree!

The Olympics is a circus with free luxury accommodation provided for a self-perpetuating oligarchy called the Olympic family who get to ride around London in special lanes.

Would that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ was impartial! If it did a proper analysis of this event it would long ago have produced a warning that it will not provide almost any of the benefits it claims to provide. Just as the government's own Game Plan report said back in 2002 before the bid!

really looking forward to the games, however the enjoyment will be masked by the standard of ´óÏó´«Ã½ coverage which consists of talking as opposed to watching. There are a number of commentators who prefer the sound of their own voices to showing action. The experience of the last European Athletic Championships was a lot better on Eurosport where current athletes of all countries were at the fore as opposed to the usual ´óÏó´«Ã½ suspects

@Roger Mosley in #28: That nuance may be in the page title, but does not appear in the link from the ´óÏó´«Ã½Sport homepage, which states "´óÏó´«Ã½ will be impartial during Games".

@Wise Owl in #29: I'm not so sure, I think several of the commentators are tools!

Splendid, if only your colleagues in News and Politics could make a similar statement in Scotland, where comments are still verboten.

@32
"There are few things more boring than the relentless sentimental chauvinism of ´óÏó´«Ã½ commentators during sporting events involving British performers. "

EH???

I hope to God no-one else agrees with you. I am British, i get excited when British athletes have a sniff at a medal, i get more excited when the commentators get more excited.

Put it this way would Steve Redgrave's gold in sydney been as good if the commentator wasn't going beserk at the end

"The Italians are coming the italians are coming....."

Brilliant commentary.

Also Hugh Porter on the cycling when he gets a little louder when Hoy comes round the bend on the keiren. Yes the olympics is an international event but there is absolutely nothign wrong with getting excited about your own athletes.

No doubt Radio 5 Live will become Radio Paula as in 2008

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ will cover the news from the Olymics in the usual way. It'll exaggerate the bad, remind us of previously bad events however weak the link and speculate endlessly about the worst possible outcome. But rest assured, this will be done impartially.

Roger just a quick thanks for your open blog.

Your Olympic partner in Gordon F has chosen to publish a blog that has not an original point in it and for no apparent reason. Luckily for himthe blog is closed to comment ;-)

'We in the bbc did our best to test this thesis...'. Fantastic stuff as ever from the bbc. Risk the wrath of the IOC and thus not getting the games for their beloved centre of the universe london just to test one of their, as ever, hopelessly off the mark theories. Pure genius. Having said that i do rather wish they had been proved right and that it had affected the bid, 'we' had not 'won' the games and we were putting £16 billion in to the rest of the country instead of pumping yet more good money aftre bad in to the horrendous hell-hole that is subsidy central london. And as for all the moaners that have posted above regarding the daily mail - tough luck for you lot eh? The daily mail goes from strength to strength in this country and you shower hate it!! Haha! The world's most popular news website now apparently! Brilliant! What annoys people in reality of course about the daily mail is that they generally call things absolutely bang on and it annoys the bejeesus out of the liberal elite/loony left etc! It's fantastic to see!

Ah bless, the Beeb want to be impartial during the Olympics and not hurt the feelings of everyone else! Typical ´óÏó´«Ã½. Just for once, get behind Team GB and all things British and stop trying to keep the minorities happy.

I hope the BEEB are kidding. We want coverage like the USA in the 80's. An athlete wins a race by a mile but the live cameras are on an American who is trailing in last! The more exposure for our people the better. Never mind the rest.

'Impartial coverage?.......the usual then

Dropping their strides in praise of Johnny Foreigner(any Johnny Foreigner at all, be they relevant to the event or not(whilst practially ignoring the home-grown talent?

When has the ´óÏó´«Ã½ ever been impartial?
Apart from a poorly written article!

´óÏó´«Ã½ impartial? That'll be a first.

Am I the only one who would like a bit of partiality in support of our own, and I know that other nations watch the ´óÏó´«Ã½, but it is the British Broadcasting Corporation so it should support the British team (but in a nice gentle understated British way of course)

Sport on ´óÏó´«Ã½? Doesn't happen very often

#32 What? The best bits of commentary are when they get carried away. It must have been about 3 in the morning staying up for the Seoul Olympics, watching England score their third against Germany in the hockey when there was the impartial line:
"you have to ask where was the German defence"
followed by the fantastic line only Motson could come out with:
"but frankly, who cares?"
Brilliant. So longing for many more "who cares" moments.
Totally un-PC. Totally memorable.

#44 - what a brilliant use of P-I-P technology. A tiny picture in the corner of the screen showing what's going on at the front in the race, whilst the main picture is the british athletes. Inspired suggestion.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ should really be biased towards the British competitiors in the Live Olympic Coverage but please ´óÏó´«Ã½, DONT start finding bad things about the Games during it...Im fed up of the negative news on my local ´óÏó´«Ã½ TV Region already and cant be having the same for the Olympics!
Also for the tyrell guy, the money that was spent on the games wouldnt been better spent on jobs, as the money was put forward by the Labour Government in 2005....long before the Recession and such....

I wouldn't expect the host broadcaster to be biased towards home nations competitors, but you should do your best to somewhat paint the country in a good light.

Its inevitable that a few traffic jams will occur, and the tube will probably suffer delays at certain times. Try focus on the positive aspects rather than picking out failures. We will be on show to the world and the last thing we need is to fight among ourselves.

At least the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is trying to be unbiased in its coverage. In the United States, the Olympic coverage is almost exclusively pro-American, from the "fluff pieces" to the commentators. You rarely see an interview with a foreign athlete, even if he or she speaks competent English and has a back story that will appeal to the casual Olympic fan in the States. I am an American, and NBC Universal (the Olympic broadcaster consortium in the US) drives me crazy with its extreme pro-American biases, which pop up every two years (as NBC Universal broadcasts the Winter Olympics as well). It's come to the point where I actually root AGAINST the American athletes just so that Bob Costas and Company can shut up.

your article is duly noted_ as indeed are the promises made therein _
1_ decision-makers should be held to account
2_ voice of the public... should be heard
3_ tell the news story of the London Games fairly and impartially
4_ ´óÏó´«Ã½ will be independent in its coverage
5_ ´óÏó´«Ã½ will never let our partnerships dictate our journalism

"Commercial interests or government pressure we can see in some foreign countries"???
LOL _ we can see that daily in the UK too!

Some people don't seam to understand what impartial means or that the Beeb only does this for news realated coverage. What it requires the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to do is report the actual news of the event not blow things out of epic proportions. A competitor get caught cheating, minor news, and entire get caught, massive news. It does not require the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to that Bob from New Zealand came 8th in Discuss. When Mark Cavendish has just sprinted down The Mall to win Gold in the Road Cycling.

Equally if on a Friday there is terrible traffic on the M25 nobody will bat an eyelid. If the entire infrastructure come grinding to a halt and lots of people with tickets can't get to their event thats news. It's also about not giving their own opinions on those news events unless it's a blog and just stating the facts with reactions.

As a supporter of the Olympics game I hope ´óÏó´«Ã½ does report impartially and is something bad happens they do give it the attention deserves. As well as successes for the games. They did it for the Commonwealth Games in India which had serious issues but it general the actual events themselves was successful. They also did the same China reporting on the state's wrongdoing and empty crowds even and again that the actual staging of the games was successful.

If someone wishes to see what on-imaprtial news is really like, read the Newpaper or watch Sky News. Better yet watch Fox News from America and you'll see how good the Beeb really is.

Well, Roger, you might think that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is a paragon of impartiality but we in Scotland don't. We are not allowed to comment on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland's political pages or political blogs while the rest of the UK can. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ in Scotland where FORCED TO APOLOGISE for heading their articles with misleading and lying headlines. Over and over again the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has shown itself to be a mouthpiece of the Labour party in Scotland and is anything but, fair, equal or impartial.

Impartial? Balanced? You're joking right?
So far all I've seen is negativity from the ´óÏó´«Ã½, and its probably because its the negative stories that sell, not the successes and positives. Lovely Adrian Warner seems to spend his career coming up with scare stories for the news every week, not once mentioning all of the successful test events, redevelopment, or positive cultural events all thanks to the games.

And when it comes to being impartial, I'd just like the mention ´óÏó´«Ã½ Hackney Weekend. When the Olympic ticketing system went down the ´óÏó´«Ã½ went berserk, and it dominated the front of the website - and most editorials. But when exactly the same happened Hackney Weekend site (and the unprepared telephone lines) there wasn't a whisper. Do the public a service, and take a long hard look at yourselves.

´óÏó´«Ã½ being impartial? Don't make us laugh.

Roger - I know you'd like to think your organisation is totally impartial but any big entity will act in it's own best interests and is subject to political pressures. Sometimes it's what you don't say rather than what you do that reduces your imparitalty e.g. one paper chose to totally ignore the fuel crisis rather than risk upsetting its owners.

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"´óÏó´«Ã½ promises impartial news coverage of Olympics"

This is April 1st isn't it? The ´óÏó´«Ã½ are as lefty leaning, propaganda experts for the Labour Party as anything that has ever existed. The idea that this organistaion could do anything that looks remotely impartial is a joke!

There is a big difference this time around - the UK is going to be full of overseas visitors who are not rooting for Team GB, and the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s coverage needs to remember this, surely.

Otherwise, I will resort, as I did in 2008, to watching the Olympics on Eurosport, who treat winners alike regardless of their nationality, and put their emphasis on the event and not on talking about it. There were occasions in Shanghai when the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s illustrious pundits were still discussing an upcoming event in the studio while Eurosport were already interviewing the winner.

´óÏó´«Ã½ impartial are you having a laugh, look at how they screen other countries, look at the roles they give ethnic minority men in their dramas, i mean look at eastenders their premier program at peek times...... you either have a spotty nosed asian teenager unsure of how to breath or a good looking one who turns out to be gay..........the ´óÏó´«Ã½ with no agenda against other nationalities .........your having a laugh lol.

Sadly the quality of the posts seems to be declining overnight, with the usual selection of trolls complaining about the ´óÏó´«Ã½ being a mouthpiece for one party and other rubbish. Oh and the ´óÏó´«Ã½ being "FORCED TO APOLOGISE" Well if it's in capital letters it must be true.... Right. In fact ´óÏó´«Ã½ journalists are as likely as any to get their facts wrong and not research their stories properly. This is however a far cry from the deliberately twisted rubbish we are constantly fed by our newspapers. The point Roger is making though is that the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s news operations should not be affected by the fact that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is the games UK broadcast partner. A point well made I would have thought.

See my earlier comments have been referred ? Suspect they must of been too partial - who judges these things ? You do !!

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