This one popped up in my feeds this week… I remember growing up loving to watch ABC’s Wide World of Sports every Saturday and what felt like the wall-to-wall coverage of the Olympics back in those days. It was the summer before my freshman year in high school and we took a rare family vacation to visit family friends in Olympia Washington, just outside of Seattle. I remember being amazed at Mark Spitz record breaking seven gold medals in swimming, and I remember the names of runners Dave Wottle (800 m) and Frank Shorter (marathon). I remember a little bit about the hostage situation, but apparently not enough to really register the depths of the event. I’m sure that a little parental censorship contributed to my memory not being strongly connected to what was later called the “Munich massacre.” 

Part of me wants to find a “non-sensational” documentary on the event, to help sort out where this film might be fudging with history for the sake of story. I’m reminded of other “based on true events” movies, like Argo (2012) that tend to ramp up the drama and in the case of Argo give hero credit to the CIA when much of what worked came from the Canadian ambassador’s office. 

That said, I like the “inside the news room” discussions about Sports being in over their heads and News wanting to take over (from New York), and the possibility that running the story in-real-time was helping the terrorists and if things go badly (spoiler alert: they did) are they then promoting the message of the terrorists? Actual journalism is not easy and it’s unfortunate that in our current environment of cameras everywhere and anyone can present themselves as a “news organization,” we can easily forget how hard it can be to get reliable information. And it doesn’t help to make mainstream journalism or just journalism into the bad guy. If anything the combination of relatively easy access to information, inexpensive technology and the monopolization of media outlets has diminished prestige journalism. To paraphrase Syndrome (from the Incredibles), If everyone is a “journalist,” then no one is a journalist. Ugh. Happy Friday, y’all and stay vigilant. This film is set to release at the end of the month on November 29th.

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Tags: 1972 Olympics, journalism, Munich Massacre, prestige journalism, video Fridays 

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