How not to interview a Dutch sports champion
Here’s something from the old box, as we say in Dutch: an American reporter of the NBC tries to interview Olympic gold speed skating champion Sven Kramer after his win in the 5000 metre event in Vancouver in 2010. Prefaced by a Dutch journalist saying ‘the interview started in a weird way’, Kramer tells the NBC reporter exactly what he thinks of her first question – watch the video to find out.
Part of me thinks, ‘wow, his answer was rude! And then he continues normally as if he hadn’t been rude’. The other part of me thinks, ‘wow, what an ignorant journalist asking a gold medal winner to identify themselves because if it were an American she would never have done that’.
This video fragment is like those pictures where depending how you look at them, you can see two different things, but never both at once.
(Photo of Sven Kramer by Mingo Hagen, some rights reserved)
It could also be a form of one camera reporting, where the interviewer isn’t heard. I did some of these reports for school (Ball State University), and it felt weird asking someone to say their name for the camera, but the end results made it quite personal sounding. This is an event that wouldn’t be shown live in the US, so if it was meant to be a part of a segment where they show medal winners saying their own names, then it is understandable.
Although the obvious, that any person with a foreign name pronouncing it for the segment would be a good thing, too. I can’t believe that any big news organization like NBC would send anyone that stupid to the games.