Blogging in Beijing: What Happens in Beijing Really Stays in Beijing

When I planned my four-day trip to Beijing to visit the NBC broadcasting operation, the last thing on my mind was that I might not be able to cover events live. After all, I had a laptop and enough other gear to outfit a small Circuit City. What could go wrong?

In a word, censorship:  blogging is apparently a suspect activity in Beijing. Someone even pointed out to me the impressive skyscraper where Chinese IT nerds block websites and blogs. A pity, because China made a huge effort to show its best face to the world and largely succeeded.

So, that’s the reason I wasn’t blogging from China. Now I’m back and organizing all my notes. In the meantime, what I can show you are photos, mainly from behind the scenes, at NBC’s broadcast center.

First, getting to the Olympic Green, in the north end of the city: it wasn’t easy. The police controlled access at several checkpoints. I got through by miming that I would pick up my press credentials at the Media Center. I imagine that people with tickets to the Bird’s Nest or the Water Cube had to wave their tickets. Strangely enough, there always seemed to be very few people actually in the Olympic Green, which  may explain why so many seats have been empty.

As you can see, officials even guarded the Friendlies, the Olympics mascots. That’s not very friendly, is it?

NBC’s operations are located at IBC, the International Broadcast Center where all the countries have their operations. NBC is apparently the second largest, right after CCTV (Chinese TV).

It’s an impressive set-up: NBC brought people from all over the U.S. and hired locals, for a staff of 3,600 that works long shifts, keeping the facility open 24/7.

With the exception of the fact that there aren’t any windows–you feel you could be anywhere–everything else looks pretty familiar.  Here are some shots of different parts of the NBC facilities there.

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I should also mention that since everyone was working such crazy hours, NBC created its own commissary: an army runs on its stomach. And caffeine. Yes, there was a full-on Starbucks inside the NBC broadcast center, as well as New York deli sandwiches and gelato.

Of course the irony of it all was that when I returned to my hotel room (the Holiday Inn Downtown), and wanted to watch the Olympics, I had to watch the Games on  CCTV.  Isn’t it great that sports is an international language? Although I didn’t understand a word of Chinese, what I can tell you is that CCTV –which provided the host feed to all the countries broadcasting from the Games (dubbed BOB, or Beijing  Olympics Broadcast)–did a skillful job and did its share of human interest stories, of course focusing on its athletes.

I also attempted to glean as much information as I could about the mobile initiatives at the Beijing Games. I talk about China Mobile and its presence in Beijing at my mobile blog, MobilizedTV.com – check it out!

I hope to be back with you soon with more tales of broadcasting in Beijing.