A day at the Olympic press centre: a bar, free massages and 24/7 McDonalds

Tyee reporter Geoff Dembicki scored himself an temporary day pass for the Main Press Centre (MPC) for the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver.

The MPC is where accredited journalists work, hang out, eat and file stories from. Not able to pay the “large sums of money” that media pay for access, Dembicki ends up there on a day pass.

He checks out the bar, eats at the 24/7 McDonalds, gets a free massage, tours the facilities and writes about the experience in a column for The Tyee called “Life Inside the 2010 Official Media Bubble.”

Dembicki writes:

“Olympics host cities are like nervous teenagers throwing a house party. Desperately wanting visitors to think they’re cool, they’re worried even the slightest misstep could ruin everything. For all the talk and hype  surrounding Vancouver’s Games, the foreign media are here, watching and recording and typing and filing. It’s a cliché, but they’re actually telling our story to the world.”