"If there’s news, we’re going to cover it." That was NBC News president Steve Capus in July, before the 3,600 hours of Olympics coverage began broadcasting, explaining how the network wouldn't pretend all was sunshine and dandelions in China even though Michael Phelps would eventually go on to become Jesus.

He was totally LOLing. Just as we suspected.

With the Olympics moving past the halfway mark, it's clear NBC's definition of covering the news is the not one others might employ. Sure, they mentioned the mini scandals like China having a pretty little girl lip-sync during the opening ceremonies because the original singer was too fugly, and the fact that some were questioning the age of a certain "13-year-old" gymnast who was supposedly 16. But it's basically failed to use its three weeks of Chinese embedding to cover actual news.

"Many journalists in China, including USA TODAY's Christine Brennan, have written about the sterile atmosphere on the Olympic Green in the first week caused by the Chinese government's aggressive security measures," reports USA Today. "That's something a viewer would have known only by omission. Gone were the Sydney pans of happy crowds, replaced by tight shots designed to hide their absence.

"When the network does wander, its efforts to find the bright side often make Pollyanna look churlish. Mary Carillo, whose irreverence is usually welcome, did a jokey report on the Three Gorges Dam and the fast train to Tibet that never mentioned that both are wildly controversial: one for its environmental impact, the other as a territorial incursion.

"The news is even worse at Today, where the attitude has become as juvenile as the dress. (Is it too much to ask on-air adults to trade flip-flops for grown-up shoes?) Friday's broadcast devoted two sentences to the arrest of three American protesters and the forcible detention of journalists trying to cover the event. That's it: no pictures, no follow-up, no reporting, nothing that might take time away from cooking, gushing or running one more 'look at me, I'm on the balance beam' segment." [Ed: Yes, that one.]

Some might argue NBC isn't there to report the news about China, just the news going on inside the Olympics in China. Which, while a leaky argument, doesn't save the network's reputation, because there was scandal to report there, too, like how a certain record-breaking swimmer became the greatest Olympian ever under a shroud of controversy. But that would mean raising a stink about NBC's hero. (Though Matt Lauer did manage to ask Michael Phelps, DUI arrestee, whether his Olympic run felt like a "car accident.")