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No gold medals, but competition is intense

Media members outnumber athletes in Athens, 15,000-10,500

There are 15,000 journalists in Athens to cover the Olympics and they seem to be everywhere.
Gerard Julien / AFP - Getty Images
updated 10:42 a.m. ET Aug. 16, 2004

They seem to be everywhere — pushing their way through the metal detectors at stadiums, elbowing in front of you on the metro and blocking all the good views at the road races. With cameras and lenses hanging from their shoulders, or with notebooks in their hands, it can sometimes feel that everyone on the streets is a member of the media.

For these story seekers, there are few things that are not of interest.

“Hey, there’s something going on down there!” shouted one Australian cameraman to his partner, one evening on a busy downtown street. The two ran downstream through the crowds, trying to catch five street performers on camera.

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The attempt to keep the media masses organized seems to equal the efforts to coordinate the games.  Approximately 15,000 journalists have come to Athens — far outnumbering the 10,500 athletes.

Overshadowing the Olympic sports complex are the two main press buildings — the International Broadcast Center, which was built specifically for the Games, and the Main Press Center, a former exhibition hall. Together the two can hold 17,000 workers. With full-service banks, multiple cafeterias, travel agents and even a flower shop, the only thing these buildings seem to be missing is a fitness center. At the end of the Games they will likely be taken over by the Greek government.

NBC, which owns the broadcasting rights to the Olympics, has more than 3,000 people in Athens. It’s a number that impresses even the thousands of other journalists in the city. A European journalist recently approached an NBC reporter, asking with awe, “Is it really true that there are 3,000 of you?”

And then there’s the massive transportation effort. Fleets of buses with yellow destination signs in the front window, wait outside the IBC — as it is known among the insiders — waiting to shepherd the writers, photographers, cameramen and technicians to 19 sports venues, 102 hotels and seven media villages. The big coach buses, sometimes carrying only one or two people, make their way down nearly every major street in Athens, taking advantage of the traffic-free Olympic lanes.

And the result of all this? Open up any newspaper, turn on any major station around the world and there it is -- seemingly non-stop Olympic coverage. Profiles of the athletes, games results and daily happenings around the city. From Athens to Australia, whatever you want to know, it can be found.

Postcards from Athens


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