Amazingly, the 2018 Winter Olympics are only 17 months away. This does not give US media much time to start writing about the 2018 Winter Games, so I have prepared a primer to help them. This does not apply to the US international sports media, such as Phil Hersh, Chris Clarey, Tim Layden, Alan Abrahamson, Nick Zaccardi, Chris Brennan, and several others, who understand the Olympics. But for the bulk of the US media, who are upset that they are not allowed to cover the only sport they know anything about, football (this means you, Mike & Mike), the following should help you focus on the topics you need to write about prior to Pyeongchang.
February 2017 – It is 1 year before Games, and you have been assigned by your sports editor to cover the Olympic beat for the next year, because they already have 37 reporters covering football, so you need to start looking for negative things to write
March 2017 – investigate the costs of the 2018 Winter Olympics – if under control, ignore this and write nothing about it; if costs seem exorbitant, start a series of “investigative” articles on this topic
April 2017 – look for problems with environmental aspects of building venues for 2018 Winter Olympics. If none exist, ignore this and write nothing about it. If there appear to be damages to the environment anywhere within several planets of Pyeongchang, start a series of “investigative” articles in this topic
May 2017 – begin discussions with people who live in the area of Pyeongchang and ask questions if they have had any negative effects from the forthcoming Olympic Games. If they have nothing to report on that topic, ignore it and either write nothing about it, or consider embellishing something on the topic to fill some space in the paper. If anyone, anywhere, in Korea or the Pacific Rim, has anything negative to say, begin a series of “investigative” articles on this topic
June 2017 – look for problems with the Pyeongchang Organizing Committee, specifically looking for any evidence of corruption in the OCOG. If any leader of the Pyeongchang OCOG has left office or retired for some unknown reason, that is an obvious sign that some corruption or fraud has occurred. If nothing can be found on this topic, ignore it, and write stories about FIFA, talking about how corrupt they are, and add in filler information on corruption within the IOC, and extrapolate that to explain to people why the Pyeongchang OCOG is likely corrupt. If any corruption is found within the OCOG, begin a series of “investigative” articles on this topic.
July 2017 – look for evidence of rare diseases within Korea or the Pacific Rim. If any of them have ever had deleterious effects on human beings, or other species, at any time within this millennium, or the previous one, begin interviewing every infectious disease expert in the Northern Hemisphere. If none of them think this is really a problem, expand this search to the Southern Hemisphere. Once you have found one medical expert who thinks this rare disease is a reason why the 2018 Winter Olympics should be cancelled, begin a series of “investigative” articles on this topic. It will help if you can find someone who had the disease and interview them on the terrible effects the disease caused. A child or a baby who had the disease is even better. If no one can be found who says this, interview anyone who had the disease, and explain why it could have caused serious problems. If you are unable to do this well, discuss with plaintiff attorneys who advertise on late night television. If you are unable to find any evidence of a rare disease affecting Korea and which may impact the 2018 Winter Olympics, return to the investigative topics you have begun in March through June.
August 2017 – water is an important topic at any Olympic Games. Investigate further environmental effects on the water in the Pyeongchang area. If none are found, investigate water in the Pyongyang area – they are not the same city, or even in the same country, but you may not have realized this yet. Have someone do bacterial and viral analyses of water in the area, which worked well in Rio. Because all water has some degree of bacteria and viruses, you will find something here that you can probably write about for several months in an “investigative” series of articles about why the Olympics should be moved from Pyeongchang, or Pyongyang, or whichever city you think they will be held in.
September 2017 – the Games are only 5 months away now so it is imperative that you have written something negative about the Olympic Games by now. If you have not, you might consider a different line of work than as a US (non-Olympic beat) sportswriter. Specifically you should consider going back to writing about college or professional football, where you are able to pronounce all the names (even Brett Favre and T. J. Houshmandzadeh) and everything about the sports are wonderful to the US media. Specifically nobody ever takes any PEDs, although compared to Olympic athletes, they are never actually tested to any degree.
October 2017 – Speaking of PEDs if you have not been able to write much negative yet about the Olympics, now is a good time to focus on doping and drug usage and how many Olympic athletes are caught for doping. Remember to neglect the fact that the IOC, the IFs, and WADA / USADA test far more frequently and more stringently than the NFL, MLB, the NBA, and NHL. None of those athletes could actually be taking drugs because Roger Goodell and Adam Silver would never allow negative publicity concerning their athletes. You should be able to write multiple good stories about PED use in Olympic athletes.
November 2017 – now is the time to focus on the weather and the lack of snow in Pyeongchang. You can write this story whether it is true or not, because it always play well before a Winter Olympics, and you can always work a connection with climate change, or global warming, or whatever is the correct PC term. Stories about lots of snowmaking going on or the military bringing in snow will work well. Although it is late for your “investigative” stories, you could get several stories on why the IOC should not have given the 2018 Winter Olympics to Pyeongchang because it is not actually a winter resort. Although it is, Pyongyang is not, but that doesn’t really matter, because its in West Korea, or someplace like that.
December 2017 – you’re running out of time. You’ve looked at various problems concerning the 2018 Winter Olympics so now is a good time to roll out the articles on why the Games should be moved from Pyeongchang (or Pyongyang in East Germany, or wherever they are), because of the multiple problems. Here it always works well to enlist a US congressperson or senator who 1) is demanding that the Games be moved; 2) thinks they should be cancelled and the US hold its own Olympics; 3) has no idea where the IOC is based, or who is in it, but he/she knows that they are corrupt, although they have no idea what an NOC, IF, OCOG, or NGB is; 4) is in a tenuous race for re-election and could really use some television exposure, which he/she will get from going after the Olympics and the IOC. A good question to ask and focus on here with the legislator is, “Should the Olympics be held at one central site every 4 years instead of moving them to different cities?” Nobody has ever suggested that before.
January 2018 – time is really short. It looks like the 2018 Winter Olympics may actually be held in Pyeongchang, so now is the time to see if you recognize some of the names of the athletes who will be competing. A good story to focus on will be Michael Phelps, the surfer who will be going after his 73rd gold medal in Pyeongchang – oh wait, since he was a surfer maybe that’s the Summer Olympics, but it doesn’t really matter. Nobody knows who any of the Olympic athletes are anyway because we/you never tell anybody about them except during the Olympics, and even if we did, we can’t spell their names or pronounce them correctly, because they’re from foreign countries, like East Korea, where NFLer T. J. Houshmandzadeh is from.
February 2018 – ba-da-bing. The 2018 Winter Olympics are a reality. They are held for 2 weeks from 9-25 February 2018 in Pyeongchang, Korea (not North Korea). There is plenty of snow, and nobody gets any disease. There are no major problems with the venues and the athletes put on superb athletic performances. Everybody enjoys themselves for 2 weeks and athletes and officials from 100s of nations get together in peace and have a wonderful time. The Koreans citizens enjoy them greatly, and wish they could hold more Olympic Games in the future. Try to avoid these facts in any of your stories.
Post 2018 Winter Olympics – time to write your summing up articles. Focus on how you actually knew that the Games would run perfectly and be held superbly. You’re not even sure who could have written anything differently. Similar to US politicians, who will use this opportunity to get photo ops with our Olympic athletes, whose names they cannot pronounce, and will likely mis-pronounce on videos, you should use this time to suck up to some of the gold medalists and write first person articles about them. It could work out well for you, because maybe there’s a book in there for you, and after all, haven’t you always loved the Olympics?
Late 2018-2019 – the book deal didn’t work out, because you kept mispronouncing the name of the gold medalist you were trying to suck up to. Your sports editor has still not realized what a boon you would be to college football coverage and you are still stuck on this God-forsaken international sports beat. Time to look into stories on the problems coming up with the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Surely these will exist because Tokyo had the Olympics before, you seem to recall it was in 1967, so they certainly must have been corrupt back then. Start writing stories about why the 2020 Olympics should be moved to another site. Pyeongchang, Korea would be good, and its close by and its your favorite city.