~Andrea Joyce~

Just sent this off to NBC...

Dear NBC,

Olympians work their entire lives preparing for their time on the "stage"...and along the way, in practice, and in competition, things happen...mistakes are made. That's why they compete....to see who can perform better, and who will make mistakes.

Alicia Sacromone is one of the finest athletes in the world....she is an Olympian, and a member of the Silver Medal USA team for the Beijing Olympics. Because of her, in part, the team qualified for the olympics, made the finals, and took second place. The mistakes that Alicia made were a very small part of the entire process which got them to the medal podium.

Your reporter, Andrea Joyce, threw all that out of the picture, in her interview of Alicia after the team finals in gymnastics, and concentrated solely on the mistakes. She was disgustingly focused on the negative and downright mean in her interview. It made me absolutely sick to my stomach. On the podium, you could see Alicia blamed herself for missing the chance at Gold, and she fought hard to maintain her composure. Ms Joyce could learn a lot from Alicia. Ms Joyce was vicious in her questions toward Alicia, and she should be ashamed and should beg us all for forgiveness for what she did to this poor girl who's entire career got narrowed down to nothing but her mistakes, by Ms Joyce.

As if that were not enough, when she later interviewed the entire team (with Alicia noticeably very upset near the back), Ms Joyce went on to harp even more on Alicia's mistakes and drove the knife in even further. It broke my heart to see the look on Alicia's face, as Ms Joyce's words just dug in even deeper.

I don't really care about reporters being objective....and I would even argue she went well past being objective and not favoring her just because she was from the USA. I might have guessed she was a foreign reporter with a distaste for the USA, the way she conducted herself. Objective is fine...a total attempt to emotionally destroy a girl who has worked her entire life for these olympics....well....pardon me, but....Andrea Joyce is a bitch....and should be fired.

Sincerely,
Christopher Payne
Santee, California
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If you watched this travesty of an "interview" early in the morning/late night last night, and if you were even half as disgusted as I was...here is the email for NBC for feedback on their coverage of the Olympics...

nbcolympicsfeedback@nbcuni.com