Sports fans following the Paris Olympics over mainstream and social media won’t be spoilt for choice when awarding the gold medal for hypocritical and malicious reporting if they have been reading the New York Times (NYT).
According to its self-proclaimed credentials the paper “seeks the truth and helps people understand the world”.
With over 1,700 journalists reporting from more than 150 countries, the paper in reality also serves as a tool of the US government in its effort to maintain US influence and hegemony throughout the world.
Hence the paper covers both US and international news and publishes so-called “independent” opinion pieces, investigative reports and reviews, which are, more often than not, propaganda wolf warrior pieces in sheep’s clothing.
The key sporting event that the NYT has focused on during the past few months has been the Paris Olympics.
Clearly, the country target for its reporters to cast aspersions on, smear and take down – as with much of the paper’s reporting on international news whatever the subject matter – is China, a country which the paper views in the same way as both US President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump: that is, America’s most serious competitor and likely “to eat our (American) lunch”.
In the sporting world, recent Olympic and other international-level performances have shown that China’s success is a formidable competitor for global news attention.
To combat any soft power impact arising from China’s achievements in Paris, beginning from early April until recently, the paper has run over 20 articles to spotlight a story about Chinese swimmers who tested positive for drug use.
The first story “Top Chinese Swimmers Tested Positive for Banned Drug, Then Won Olympic Gold” appeared on April 20.
This was followed by a series of articles, with provocative titles aimed at vilifying China’s sports authorities and swimmers such as “Chinese Swimmers Twice Tested Positive for Drugs. They Kept on Swimming”, “An Uproar Over a Chinese Doping Case Except in China”, “Team USA Was Cheated: Chinese Doping Case Exposes Rift in Swimming” and “Anger Lingers Over Positive Doping Tests for Chinese Swimmers”.
Besides acting as judge and jury on the case, the paper also instigated US-China animosity by headlining that a top Biden official had called for an inquiry into the Chinese doping case and that the FBI and Justice Department had opened a criminal investigation in the Chinese doping case.
Missing from the NYT reports are the full facts of the case which became the subject of a special investigation by the world’s top doping and swimming agencies, World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and World Aquatics (WA), of which both China and the US are members.
Wada rebuttal of NYT Chinese swimming dope story
The following are excerpts from the six-page Wada document, Contamination Case of Swimmers from China Fact Sheet/Frequently Asked Questions, released on April 29 in response to the initial NYT report:
“Between Jan 1 and 3, 2021, the China Anti-Doping Agency (Chinada) collected 60 urine samples of Chinese swimmers at a national swimming meet. There were 201 swimmers competing. This event was not a qualifying event for the Olympic Games.
“After certain delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the samples were reported to Wada’s Anti-Doping Administration and Management System by the Wada-accredited laboratory in Beijing on or around 15 March 2021. There were 28 Adverse Analytical Findings for the prohibited substance, trimetazidine (TMZ), involving 23 different swimmers, which means that a small number of them tested positive more than once.
“On June 15, 2021, Wada was notified of the decision by Chinada to accept that 23 swimmers had tested positive in early 2021 for TMZ, after inadvertently being exposed to the substance through food/environment contamination as a result of TMZ detected in the kitchen (including spice containers, the extraction fan above the hob and the drains); and that, they would not move forward with Anti-Doping Rule Violation cases.
“This decision was also provided to World Aquatics (formerly Fina) at the same time as Wada, as required under the rules.
“In order to determine whether Wada would exercise its right to appeal this decision, Wada carefully reviewed Chinada’s decision and, on June 21, Wada requested the full case file. World Aquatics also requested and received the exact same case file as Wada. They undertook their own review.
“Based on all available scientific evidence and intelligence, which was gathered, assessed and tested by experts in the pharmacology of TMZ; and, by anti-doping experts, Wada had no basis under the World Anti-Doping Code to challenge Chinada’s findings of environmental/food contamination – a position that was also reached by World Aquatics.
“Wada stands firmly by the results of its scientific investigation and legal decision concerning the case. We are equally confident that Wada’s independent I&I Department followed up on all allegations received, which were not corroborated by any evidence, and thus did not meet Wada I&I’s threshold to open an investigation.”
To date, NYT has not attempted to provide in full the Wada and WA response to its defamatory and malicious allegations insinuating a cover-up by China and of a conspiracy aimed at suppressing the story which involved the two key international agencies.
The concluding section of the Wada report is one that the team of reporters of the NYT would do well to remind themselves every time they attempt to bring politics into sports, culture or any other field that is not related to America’s political agenda and interests:
“Wada understands that some stakeholders may disagree with the outcome of this case. However, to leap to conspiracy theories of cover-ups and favouritism towards China is outrageous, without basis and defamatory. Rather than cover up these cases, Wada reviewed them thoroughly and discussed them with multiple international organisations at different points in time from 2021 to 2023. Finally, we would invite stakeholders to consider the facts and the evidence of this case, and not to lose sight of the perspective of the athletes who were victims of contamination.”
It is clear that the NYT team was engaging in kneecap whacking of China’s swimmers à la Tanya Harding style by disrupting their preparation and undermining their psychological well-being ahead of the competition.
The stream of similar stories carried by Western media resulted in the China swimming team having to go through the most doping tests in the history of the Olympics.
This weaponisation of the doping case story, however, appears to have had the opposite effect with China winning more swimming medals in Paris (12) than it won in the Tokyo Olympics (6) and the 2022 World Aquatic Championships (4).
The clearest evidence of how the paper and other Western media have failed in stigmatising China, in this case, is available from the numerous social media blogs and feedback from hundreds of thousands of viewers following the swimming events at the Games.
The conclusion of most, Western media and NYT’s reputation for fair and independent sports reporting has gone down several notches.
Lim Teck Ghee’s Another Take is aimed at demystifying social orthodoxy. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
