How the Downtown Eastside became an Olympics non-story

Was it because the province's sudden frenzy of efforts in the previous two years actually deflected criticism? Or something else?
Frances Bula
Vancouver, BC — Special to The Globe and Mail
Published on Friday, Mar. 05, 2010

The dire predictions abounded for years before the Olympics that Vancouver's two ugly secrets - the Downtown Eastside and homelessness - would be exposed by 10,000 international reporters who wouldn't be able to resist the story about a beautiful city's underbelly.

But those predictions never came true. A few of the larger outlets - the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, for example - did the obligatory scene-setter stories on those issues before the Games began last month. But they didn't reveal anything particularly new or startling. And they didn't ignite any kind of media firestorm that came even close to the later coverage of, say, Cauldrongate - the furor over the chain-link fence in front of the Olympic flame.

And any interest in general stories about human suffering seemed to evaporate in the face of individual tragedies during the Games, starting with the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili on opening day.

"I was surprised at how focused the media was on just the Olympic events," said David Eby, the one-time housing advocate who fought for years to force the provincial government to meet its bid-book commitment of preserving and creating low-cost housing. "I thought they would be all over the city looking for stories. It certainly wasn't the onslaught of journalists walking up Hastings Street that we imagined."

City councillor Ellen Woodsworth was also taken aback by the lack of interest. "I was surprised at how little attention was paid."

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