When the liberal American press touched down in Sochi, Russia, three weeks ago to cover the winter Olympics in a subtropical climate, reporters were given a harsh reality check in a post-communist country.
Reporters covering the event took to social media to complain about everything from the yellow water and lack of door handles to poor overall infrastructure. The situation was referred to as the Sochi “yuck” factor with sightings of bees in honey, stray dogs and a woman painting the grass green. The hashtag “Sochi Problems” quickly started trending on Twitter and an entire account was dedicated to the ongoing saga.
Chicago Tribune reporter Stacy St. Clair tweeted, “My hotel has no water. If restored, the front desk says, ‘do not use on your face because it contains something very dangerous.'” ESPN's Wayne Drehs said, “1st time waiting for hotel room because construction not complete. Bathroom still not done. It's 2:25 am.”
Using the restroom provided a whole different experience. Signs with extensive rules about how to go to do the deed were posted on the walls along with warnings not to flush toilet paper but rather put it in a provided trash bin. Showers came without shower curtains and with wires hanging from the ceiling. Oh, and don't mind the cameras the Russian government had installed in the bathrooms as well.
“We have surveillance video from the hotels that shows people turn on the shower, direct the nozzle at the wall and then leave the room for the whole day,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak told a reporter before being quickly swept away by an aide, according to The Wall Street Journal. Later, an aide said Kozak “misspoke.”
At one point a frustrated Vladimir Putin, who has little patience for a free press, berated those publishing the truth about Sochi conditions and pulled out the old communist trick of telling people what they were seeing isn't really true. Luckily in the age of social media, using Joseph Goebbels' tactic of, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” is difficult to get away with.
Reporters weren't simply complaining about less than ideal conditions at the Olympics. They were doing precisely what Putin and his ilk hate the most, albeit inadvertently: exposing the failure of government control.
Regardless, liberal members of the media still just didn't get it. During the opening ceremonies, NBC referred to Soviet communism as “a pivotal experiment” and although reporters didn't fail to notice yellow water coming out of their faucets, they ironically missed the reason for it.
The awful hotel conditions they griped about were a direct result of communist thinking. Did a single liberal reporter stop for a second and think, “Wow, I didn't realize communism actually sucked this bad”? I doubt it.
Reporters may not have missed all the problems with Sochi, but they missed the reason for the laundry list of Sochi problems in the first place.
Katie Pavlich is the news editor of Townhall.com. Her exclusive Trib columns appear the first and third Fridays of each month.
