At Beijing Press Conferences, the Questions Tell Their Own Story

Still, in most cases, it is as if the two press corps are dancing side by side, inside the same cramped ballroom, to two different songs.

The tone was set at the opening news conference of the Games, when reporters customarily fire questions about various controversies at the president of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach.

First, though, came a question from China Central Television, the state broadcaster. “After two years of dark times,” the reporter asked, “do you feel the coming of spring?”

The whiplash was palpable when a reporter from Reuters then stepped to the microphone to ask Bach about his plans to meet Peng Shuai, the Chinese tennis player who disappeared from public life for weeks after accusing a top government official of sexual assault (Bach did meet her). Stories about Peng continue to be censored in China.

The diverging sensibilities have been on display at the Olympic venues, too. On Thursday night, after China lost to the United States in hockey, a reporter asked a player from the Chinese team, which has several naturalized players, how he felt about playing alongside his “foreign national teammates.”

A Chinese reporter turned, surprised. “You can’t say foreign nationals,” she said.

Similarly, at Saturday’s I.O.C. news conference, after three consecutive questions from international reporters pressing Olympic officials about the Valieva doping case, a Chinese reporter changed the tone.

“There are a lot of super performances by the athletes, a lot of Olympic records are being broken,” she said. “Is this good performance related to the support of the Olympic villages, the good service to the athletes?”

Source: | This article originally belongs to Nytimes.com