AP sends largest contingent to cover Beijing Olympic Games
5/8/2008 17:04
As the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games is bringing more nations and
athletes together, the Associated Press (AP) is sending its largest staff
contingent of more than 300 members to China with a "much heavier emphasis on
multimedia coverage," Thomas Curley, president and chief executive officer of
AP, told Xinhua in New York yesterday.
In an exclusive interview only a few
hours before his departure for Beijing, Curley said, "we have more than 300
people who will be there in Beijing or at the other venues and cities outside
Beijing."
"This is by far our largest staff contingent," he said, "so we will
be doing several things differently, a much heavier emphasis on multimedia
coverage and that will be a hallmark of these events."
There will be more
content on the Internet, more photos, and more interactive videos from the AP
coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games, Curley said.
The New York-based AP,
according to its website, is a not-for-profit news cooperative of US newspapers
and broadcasters and provides more than 15,000 media outlets worldwide and
thousands of commercial customers with news stories, photographs, audio, video
and multimedia online products.
Explaining why AP decided to send its largest
team to cover the games, Curley said, "This Olympics will be more interesting"
and also multimedia coverage "seems to take more journalists."
"Part of it is
multimedia and of course part of it is just the nature of the games. Now these
are the biggest games, more countries, more athletes and the rise of women
athletes too," he said, "that all has added to the number of events."
Curley
said there also will be a lot of cultural coverage, because" China fascinates
Americans in particular", and many people are interested to "connect with the
modern China and understand where it is going."
"Music, culture, art and all
the aspects of the Olympics. It's much more than sport", said Curley, who began
his journalism career at age 15 covering high school basketball for hometown
Easton (Pa.) Express and became head of AP on June 1, 2003.
"The story of
China is quite extraordinary, and it's truly breathtaking how much progress
China has made. We hope this (the Olympic Games) is a moment when China can
showcase a lot of that progress," he said.
Commenting on the preparation work
of the Beijing Olympic Games, he said, "we believe that the physical properties
will be the best ever. Obviously, the architecture is stunningly
gorgeous."
"We've all been there and have had the chance to see the housing,
which is the best that we've ever experienced for the Olympic Games," he
noticed.
"So in terms of the planning and everything ahead of time, we think
the Chinese have done better than any organizers in Olympic history," Curley
said.
"They have done a great job," he said. "And in terms of the media
preparation, I can tell you everything is working, so we're relieved."
Asked
about his point of view on the role of the Olympic Games in promoting world
peace, Curley said, "the Olympics is a very important movement and it really is
very exciting to see nearly all the nations of the world walking together and
competing peacefully."
"Hopefully this will be another demonstration of how
everybody can get along and my experience with the Olympics is you always meet
people from places who have wonderful stories," he said.
Curley recalled the
story of Josia Thugwane, the first black South African Olympic gold medalist,
who won the marathon race in Atlanta in 1996 and used the money he won to learn
to read and write.
"Those stories are uplifting and every Olympics turns out
to produce stories like that. So that's what excites us and it's good for
journalists because those are some terrific stories to report, " he
said.
Xinhua
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