Disgusted with NBC Gymnastics Interview
Hat’s off to NBC’s Andrea Joyce for the digusting interview of the US Olympic Women’s Gymnastics Team and in particular the 1 on 1 interview with Alicia Sacramone.
How appropriate to continually asked her how it felt about….
1 what went thru your head when you made this mistake?
2. how did you feel when you realized your mistake cost your teamates a gold medal?
3. it seems like your mistake rattled your teamates, what did you say to them after you came back from the balance beam, where you fell?
4. How did you prepare for the floor excercises, that you made 2 errors on?
5. What was your the feeling about being the captain of the team and …..
these are not exact quotes, but they might as well be.
I spent the last few days chatting with a business associate about psychology and human development. My first bachelor’s degree is in Pyschology. Those discussions and some recent stories i’ve read about treating earthquake victims in china and helping people in trauma (physical, emotional/mental). Current thinking seems to be: the most effective way to overcome come the emotional trauma is ask what they need (within reason) not to ask them to replay the event and discuss its implications. Replaying the bad times often results in a reinfliction of pain.
While Andrea Joyce’s job isn’t to be trauma counselor, she could have let Scaramone just talk about her feelings and experiences. Instead Joyce work hard to seem like mike wallace interviewing some tin horn dictator.
Gold Medal for the Most offensive interview: NBC and Andrea Joyce. Contrast that with the way Meridith Viero asked the same questions on the Today show this next morning.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:13 am
I was outraged by Joyce’s interview of the gymnasts last night. She is an awful interviewer. Her questions are rarely if ever insightful. Now she has progressed from mere incompetence to cruel and rude incompetence through her brow beating of disappointed athletes. Nobody wants to hear Joyce. She should be moved to an off camera role or dismissed.
August 13th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
You are SO right on. Thank you for the post. Andrea Joyce is classless for the way she interviewed Alicia. What a huge jerk. She should be canned.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I’m completely with you all - in fact, I’m so disgusted by Dragon Lady Joyce that I’m devoting hours out of my day to write emails to NBC, The Washington Post, blogs, etc. She is totally lacking class, judgment and, frankly, intelligence, and I just can’t let this slide. She’s gotta go.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Andrea Joyce’s interview was nothing short of abusive. It was as if she was intentionally trying to make Alicia Sacramone cry and break whatever spirit the girl had left. Did she realize she was speaking to a child? One who had probably just experienced the greatest loss of her life? Why not focus on the amazing accomplishment of winning a silver medal in the Olympics? It’s impossible to find NBC’s corporate complaints email, but if you agree I urge you send an email to your local NBC affiliate who will forward it on to the broadcast company. IF you can’t find the contact information for your local station send an email to mine. You can do so here.
NBC contact information:
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=205
August 14th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
I contrast that with the interview that Meridith Vieira did with the entire team. She asked Alicia if her teammates had been supportive of her, giving her a chance to discuss something positive that resulted from the error. That quickly turned into a discussion of how close these young women were and how well they dealt with disappointment. This is the positive that came from a bad moment for a young athlete who slipped once or twice during an event. They won a silver medal finishing second to the home team. A job well done
I’m sure NBC would have a way to complain if there was any reason to complain :O (note the sarcasm)