Following on the heels of that Olympics fireworks fiasco comes a New York Times report that the nine-year-old girl who sang a patriotic ballad in the opening ceremonies, while floating suspended from wires, was performing to another girl’s vocals. The kicker: the Olympic stagers apparently went with the switch because the seven-year-old who sang was [...]

NBC’s coverage of the Olympic opening ceremonies is coming under fire (so to speak) for its presentation of the “fireworks” at the beginning of the spectacular. The event opened with a sweeping tracking shot, moving over the Beijing skyline as “footprints” exploded over them, one for each Olympiad. The one hitch: the fireworks weren’t actually [...]

7:25: We’re set to go Chez Tuned In. The laptop is charged; the chips are ready; and Tuned In Jr. and Tuned In Jr. Jr. are primed for their first Olympic Opening Ceremonies. Mrs. Tuned In and I have told them that this will be an exciting show, much better than the Movie Night they [...]

I’ll be at this space tonight, doing some play-by-play on the NBC coverage of the Olympic opening ceremonies. Tuned In Jr. and Tuned In Jr. Jr. will be staying up to watch too, so coverage depends in part on whether I can keep them from spilling anything on my laptop. Any “liveblogging,” of course, has [...]

In my latest Olympic-walkup column about how pop culture has largely ignored modern China, I mentioned very briefly that some cable documentaries and news shows have been trying—albeit with relatively small audiences—to fill in the gaps. So it’s only fair that I mention some of them. Last month, Discovery viewers saw Ted Koppel portray China [...]