Monday 12 August 2024

Utterly shameless posturing

So....the Paris Olympics has finally ended and the United States are at the top of the medals standing ahead of China, but only just. Both countries finished with 40 golds each but the Americans were placed ahead because they had more silver and bronze medals than any other country in the competition. But the Americans have proven themselves quite shameless. Up until the last day of the Olympics while they were still trailing in the gold medal standings, their newspapers consistently placed their country above China. Their posturing was not based on the number of gold medals achieved but the total number of gold, silver and bronze medals collected by their athletes. It's not wrong to do that, mind you, but it is more the exception than the norm. Most countries do not subscribe to this point of view. How low can they go? Obviously, very, very low indeed to pander to their own domestic readership, if these screenshots from the websites of (left to right, below) USA Today, Washington Post, The New York Times and NBC are anything to go by. And these are among American's top newspapers!



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