How VANOC snubbed Olympian Kerrin Lee-Gartner
February 4, 2010 · 31 Comments
I’ve written periodically about CTVglobemedia’s moronic decision to have its journalists and broadcasters participate in the IOC torch relay. As a follow-up, I strongly recommend Randy Starkman’s Feb. 1 blog in The Toronto Star.
Just to state my position: It is inappropriate for journalists to carry the Olympic torch, particularly those who will be in Vancouver covering the Games. It’s inappropriate because these people, by running with the flame, are participating in a marketing exercise that promotes a business enterprise, the Olympics, which they will be expected to objectively report on. How can you help hype an event one moment and then be expected to give an honest and independent assessment of it the next?
By email a few months ago, Tom Jolly, the sports editor of The New York Times, told me his paper would never allow its journalists to carry the Olympic torch. The Globe and Mail obviously thought otherwise. It assigned several of its journalists to the relay. In total, CTVglobemedia, which owns the Globe and CTV, had 27 broadcasters and journalists running with the torch. One of them explained his/her feelings about it this way: He/she didn’t want to do it, but held his/her nose and got it done. “Luckily, there was nobody along the road to see me,” the person said.
The only way participating in the relay can be justified journalistically – and even then it’s a pretty lame argument – is to do it to produce a first person account of the experience. But what makes the experience exceptional? You’re on a road, you’re carrying a torch, there may or may not be people along the way watching you, and then it’s over. Of the Globe’s writers, the only one who wrote about the experience, columnist Gary Mason, described it as “strangely wonderful.”
There’s another reason why journalists should not be in the relay. They take spots away from more deserving people. As Starkman noted, Kerrin Lee-Gartner is the only Canadian to win the Olympic downhill event. It was in 1992 at Albertville. She’s from British Columbia, the province in which the Olympics are being held, and she lives in Calgary. She was an obvious choice to carry the torch, right? Well, no. She didn’t make the cut. But people such as CTV’s Ben Mulroney and Sandie Rinaldo did.
After The Vancouver Sun ran a story reporting on the number of Olympians overlooked for the relay, VANOC head John Furlong contacted Lee-Gartner and said the organizing committee would try to fit her in for Feb. 11, the day before the start of the Games. He said he would get back to her on Jan. 29. He never did.
So, there you go. Ben, Sandie and all the others get to carry the torch. A great Olympian gets fobbed off.
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Well, it sounds like not much has gone right for this Olympic committee….every day a new issue is raised. How embarrassing for Canada……and OH while we are on the topic of the torch….who's BRIGHT idea was it to invite Arnold Schwarzenegger to carry our torch???????? Didn't he spend most of his career pumping steroids!!!__Kerrin Lee-Cartner deserves an "apology"……..__
has anyone noticed that Kerrin Lee Gartner has not been so much as MENTIONED on any CTV Olympic coverage. Even the retrospective commentaries disregard her win for Canada. CTV blacklists true Canadian sport heroes because they aren't on the consortium payroll. What crap!
Someone covering the Olympics for the BBC carried the torch, & it wasn't Kerrin Lee-Gartner:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/matthewpinsent/2010/02...
Hi Bill thank you for the article and it is a total disgrace that Kerrin Lee Gartner amongst all got snubbed. It just don't get it. She is a BC girl that won Olympic gold and should have got her place in the sun. I don't get it why CTV primadonnas like Benny Boy carries the flame at the Torch Relay.
I don't think you will see her carrying the torch at the opening ceremonies either as she is slated to work for the BBC at the Olympics including being a cohost for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies as well doing alpine skiing for the Beeb.
Why didn't Keith (I love myself so much) Pelley not hire Lee-Gartner? Is she not qualified enough for Canadian TV, thus has to work for BBC? What a joke.
It just points out how poorly managed this whole operation is. What a mess CTV/Globemedia has created for itself. They way overbid for both 2010 and 2012 Olympics, which will only mean hire cable and phone rates for the general public to cover their financial losses.
Who's the next sucker that will hire Pelley, and his huge salary, so he run it right into the red. The wee little fella has a history of doing just that!
I just was on the CTV Olympic site and found an interesting Lee-Gartner article. Here is a snippet.
>> Lee-Gartner, a CBC analyst, approached Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium, the partnership between CTV Inc. and Rogers Media Inc., but was turned down. "I really wanted to speak to a Canadian audience," she said. "But they felt I had been at the CBC too long." <<
Instead they are going with a rookie broadcasters Karen Percy-Lowe and Cary Mullen. Yep, another brilliant call by the genius leadership group.
Lee-Gartner can't make it, but Mulroney does??? Shame, shame, shame. Ben would be doing midnight radio in some far-flung outpost if it wasn't for his last name. Even if, as some rumours have it, Lee-Gartner will be the flag-bearer, it still doesn't justify the so-called journalists at CTV-Globe Media carrying the torch. And I agree with the person who said he/she has lost all respect for Brunt. I've been a big fan of his and like his books, but I'm completely soured by (A) the way he sucks up to Macowan every night on The Fan and (B) his stance on carrying the torch. Shame on you, Brunt.
I agree with Hugo Monster about Pelley. He and his former bosses at the Argos are just carpetbaggers. Pelly has been Rick Brace's butt boy for a long time, so he will re-emerge somewhere else when this is over. I know he has been stumping for the CFL commissioner job for years and he also harbours a desire to take over for Peddie at MLSE. What an ego!
As an accredited reporter for the Vancouver Winter Olympics and a long-time sportswriter at The Vancouver Sun, I was dismayed at the lack of professional integrity shown by Messrs. Brunt, MacGregor, Mason, etc. of the Globe. Gentlemen, have you no shame? At least give the impression of professional detachment. Will you be putting your torches up for sale on eBay?
Sadly, this torch relay seems more about giving face time to C list celebrities such as Ben Mulroney and sellout journalists while legitimate Canadian heroes such as Kerrin Lee-Gartner, Karen Magnussen, Kathy Kreiner and Ross Rebagliati are ignored.
I applaud Bill Houston for his courage in pointing out this farce, especially since his colleagues at the Globe are involved.
I was just thinking about our Olympic athletes who never medalled, but they were successful in their time….
VANOC seems to have forgotten the legacy of The Crazy Canucks – Dave Irwin, etc., and what about the ski jumpers like Horst Bulau and Steve Collins (Canada's most successful Nordic skiers ever). Even Chris Lori (bobsleigh) has been ignored. VANOC has totally forgotten about these athletes who inspired our present Olympians. Shameful indeed.
People in the know realize that the Consortium has botched this completely from a marketing standpoint. Savvy marketers would have locked up Lee Gartner to be part of the relay. But they didn't. Their promos have been weak and weaker. They've spent millions. Nothing interactive in a social media sense with athletes. Just same old, same old. Agree with the other posters- let CBC do what CBC does best, and that's cover the games. The Consortium are all running for cover.
Her being snubbed is just wrong. But…don't be surprised to see her in the stadium on 12 Feb though.
Further proof that the whole Olympics movement is a bottomless sewer for bureaucrats to piss away hard earned tax payer money. Screw 'em all.
I feel bad for Kerrin Lee Gartner. Her victory was such an exciting moment in Canadian sport. It should have been recognized. There's still time I hope…
So *that's* why Brunt made that Santa Claus comment on the earler blog posting about Jim Nantz (conflict of interest – commercial with Peyton Manning). Brunt's comment suprised me at the time (figured someone else must be using his moniker)… but all has now become clear … Brunt is playing in the same sandbox.
Well, it is a farce that Kerrin Lee Gartner didn't get to carry the torch in favour of Ben Mulroney. No doubt.
But how is it any less objective to be involved in the relay – than to be covering the games for a network that paid huge dollars to be permitted special access to cover the games. There is a serious business arrangement – how objective can they be?
Nobody cares…there's bigger things to worry about then some people running with a stick on fire…grow up people.
A-frickin’-men!
Aren’t there over 10,000 torch runners? I mean how special can that be when 10,000 have been selected? What a waste of time and money – the Olympics and everything about it.
Who are we trying to kid? This evil consortium has been out for money from the start. It is sickening to think that athletes from our Olympic past have been turned away because of some 'talking head' wants their moment in the sun.
This CTV-Rogers-TSN-Sportsnet-Omni-APTN-RDS-V-etc.etc group is Americanizing the games – and just like Calgary and Barcelona before it (remember that CTV?), Vancouver will be ruined because of subpar broadcasting.
Let CBC do what it does best – broadcast the games.
A damn shame that Kerrin Lee Gartner would be missed. If she is running in the opening ceremonies then terrific. But there is no way all these so called celebrities and journalists should be carrying this torch. The olympics is politics at it's "best" (worst) always has, always will be.
<quote>"It is inappropriate for journalists to carry the Olympic torch, particularly those who will be in Vancouver covering the Games. It’s inappropriate because these people, by running with the flame, are participating in a marketing exercise that promotes a business enterprise…'</quote>
I agree with you 100+%
It's a farce. But wait, there's more.
A Shameful Track Record:
The Olympic movement plays fast and loose with basic democratic values. By Laura Robinson [former member of the national cycling team, former Canadian rowing champion, and Ontario Nordic ski champion. The Vancouver Olympics will be her fifth to cover as a journalist. She coaches the Anishinaabe Nordic Racers at Cape Croker First Nation Elementary School in Ontario.]
Just another reason why these Olympics smell.
Wow…everyone is so bitter. BTW William….did you ever think that Kerrin Lee-Gartner might be running with the flame in the opening ceremonies….hmmmmm???
This is a good point. And the fact that there are no quotes from her in the post is interesting.
Isn't it interesting how there was all this talk about hyping the "journalists" runs with the torch, but then when the controversy broke out, we didn't hear or see a thing from these "journalists" about their runs.
They knew what they were doing was wrong. They did it anyway.
And worst of all from Brunt. He tried to claim it wasn't any big deal. It was just a corporation out to make money. But he certainly was all excited to carry the torch in his native NFLD. If it didn't mean much, why didn't he just give up his spot…to Karrin Lee-Gartner.
He's a hypocrite and a sell out. I will never look at him the same way again.
Of all the journalists running with the torch, I believe Brunt was the most disappointing. I truly believed he was a Canadian journalist with more integrity than what was displayed. No, Brunt, there IS no Santa Claus, as you have pointed out and….there obviously is no journalist integrity. Did CTV have poor, old Lloyd Robertson also…with his walker…"running" with the torch???
wait, so you're telling me after all his condescending opining about journalistic ethics Brunt didn't even write about his experience running with the torch?
CTV's incessant torch relay coverage has become nothing short of tiring, particularly in light of the ongoing battle between "local broadcasting" and the cable/satellite providers. Message to CTV Toronto (CFTO): the Winter Olympics and the torch relay are NOT local news for your 6:00 pm broadcast. It's a national event with no local bearing whatsoever. Leave it to Lloyd.
Well said Bill. You are completely correct. BTW, aside from all of the B List celebs (Mulroney, Rinaldo etc.) don't forget all of the various flunkies who work for The Consortium. Many of them were slotted in ahead of average Canadians whose tax dollars are directly or indirectly funding this circle jerk.
Since when did Ben Mulroney graduate to a B list celebrity? This whole CTV/globemedia initiative has been bungled from the get-go on many levels and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The self-promoting egotist Keith Pelley, who wouldn't know a puck from a baseball, doesn't make for enlightened leadership producing such a spectacle as the Olympics. Could be a disaster in waiting with all the CTV/Globe self-promos and leaving the sporting endeavours as an afterthought. Pelley's motives are all about money and ratings and seems doesn't care the slightest about quality, or accurate journalism.
You said it yourself – they are participating in a marketing exercise that promotes a business enterprise. The consortium paid for the rights to be part of the enterprise, and are using their employees to help generate a profit. I'm not so starry-eyed as to believe that they will give an "honest and independent assessment" of the games any more than I expect Jerry Howarth to be honest and independent when covering the Blue Jays or Joe Bowen covering the Leafs. They are just part of the show. Does it bother me that such luminaries as Christine Bentley and Stephen Brunt get to carry the torch ahead of Olympic athletes? Of course, but then I let my natural cynicism take over and see it for what it is, show business, just like the Leafs and Blue Jays, with the aim of making as much money as possible. The true "Olympic spirit" resides with the athletes, but they are just there to provide the show.
Well said. Couldn't agree more.