WILL YOU BE WILLING TO JOIN A PROTEST IN NYC LATER THIS WEEK???
What would really embarrass and concern NBC is having a sidewalk protest outside their NYC Headquarters about their poor Olympic coverage. Other networks would be thrilled to put this on their evening Prime Time news broadcasts. Millions of casual sports fans would see this protest on TV and a decent percentage might conclude that yes, much of what they are watching is crap, Many might conclude they should reduce the time they spend watching Olympics this final week. Competing networks would love to start a discussion about NBC’s poor coverage, but they need someone to start this story before they run with it.
This could also get the IOC thinking about not awarding NBC the coverage in 2012, or at least placing into the award contract some minimum requirements on type of timing of TV & internet coverage. Unfortunately, a large number of complaints on letsrun aren’t going to help here. But a protest seen by millions on TV just might get something started that improves coverage in 2012 and beyond.
If anyone wants to organize this, a friend and I would gladly show up. All we need is an organizer (sorry I don’t have the time), someone to set up a date & time, get any needed permits, contact ABC and CBS as to what we will be doing, and to provide an email address so other upset runners in the NY area can notify the organizer that they will be attending. Oh yes, someone needs to make a few large “NBC OLYMPIC COVERAGE SUCKS” banners.
NYC has ten’s of thousands of road/distance runners. I would think we could easily get 50-100 of us to join a protest, ideally around 5-7pm some weekday evening (Friday?) when NBC execs are leaving their headquarters and when CBS and ABC can broadcast live (something NBC can’t seem do) our protest on their nightly news channels.
If the organizer can’t get 10-20 people to commit to a date then this protest isn’t done. Wejo could put up a brief intro on letsrun’s home page that links to a message board thread where one is given the needed information to show up and is able to provide an email contact announcing one’s intension of joining the protest. From the NY Road Runners Club, we might be able to get an email contact for all the 100+ running clubs in the NY area and sent them an email asking them to quickly notify their members to come and join us for a few hours at 5-7pm, at xxx location on xxx date. After the protest we could go to a bar/ restaurant for dinner and to socialize.
But time is running out and we 1-3 people to step up as organizers over this weekend.