At 1:07 p.m. Thursday, my inbox pinged with a new e-mail with the subject "For Friday I have the gymnasts' leos, which is excellent timing."
Inside, it read, "But maybe you don't want to know why it is excellent."It's normal course of business for a reporter -- in this case, Star-Telegram art and design critic Gaile Robinson, who's blogging the Olympics as a one-woman fashion FBI from her living room and had a scoop about the gymnasts' crystal-studded leotards -- to tell her editor what she's writing about.Not so normal to ask whether the editor really wants to know.Last week, I was one of the millions attempting to practice Olympics Puritanism. I wanted to cheer along a Phelps-Lochte splashdown, white-knuckle a close Misty-Kerri match and climb through Gabby, Aly and Jordyn's valleys and peaks along with them -- or at least as "with them" as I could during tape-delayed TV coverage.In a world of almost no surprises, I wanted to be gobsmacked.Much has been said of the backward-double-twisting-layouts viewers are contorting themselves into to avoid Olympics spoilers, and how NBC, Twitter and all the Internets are making it impossible to stick a landing in prime time.The coverage-haters have taken to social media to complain that social media ruins the Olympic experience, and the coverage-hater haters have taken to social media to tell them to just unplug from social media already.Lightweights, all of 'em.Try working in a newsroom with 19 TVs mounted on the walls and two computer monitors on your desk, where your boss is also the sports editor, your employee is covering the Olympics, disconnecting from Tweet deck is a journalistic handicap akin to forwarding your sources' calls to voice mail and -- oh yeah -- you get a paycheck for being one of the people who puts the news out there when it happens. (For the HR record, I wasn't the only one in the newsroom trying to avoid spoilers.)And yet, I mostly succeeded in hovering inside an Olympic-free cocoon during the first week of coverage. If a newsroom employee can do it, you can, too. Here are my tips and warnings for those who want to shield themselves from spoilers during Week 2:1. Unplug -- at your own risk. Obviously, if you turn off your smart phone and "just say no" to your social media addiction, you won't get Olympics headlines. You also won't get headlines that keep you an informed citizen (or make you a rock star at happy hour).The day the U.S. women gymnasts went for the gold, I -- oh, jeez, I hate to admit this -- avoided the Internet most of the day and missed an entire election. (Bad journalist. Bad, bad, bad.)2. Avoid interaction with those in the know. I knew not to stop in and chat with my sports editor boss when she was updating stories, monitoring blog posts and talking with her reporters in London in the afternoons when the competitions were over. She respected my spoiler-limits when it came to sharing photos of the day, too.Photo of the athletes wearing medals? Do not share. Photos of what Duchess Kate wore to the Games that day? Share quickly, please.3. Do your own tape-delay. DVRing the coverage and watching only the competitions -- without commentary in and out of them, even, is the only way to avoid potential TV spoilers. Several times already, NBC has spilled an outcome with a tease to an interview the next day, a segue into commercial break or in the editing of event coverage itself. (The poor schlubs on the U.S. men's gymnastics team only got broadcast time for two of their five rotations the night they finished -- gasp -- fifth.)4. Become a partial headline speed-reader. You're probably going to, at some point in the day, be on some website that'll flash a headline you want to see. Learn to read the first word or two and then do the visual-equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing, "La, la, la" before you see how that headline ends. You'll know your favorite athlete did something newsworthy -- you just won't know what or how.A friend said she's thinking of Olympic spoilers like romantic movies: You may find out that in the end, the lead character (athlete) gets his or her true love (medal), but you don't know how they ended up with it until you actually watch the story unfold. Think of the Olympics as the ultimate chick flick.5. Keep calm and carry on. Unless you're in London (lucky!), there's no way to experience the Olympic Games as they unfold in real time. You, too, will get another chance to be a good spoil sport two years from now -- amid what's sure to be an even swifter, higher, stronger Twitter-blogo-Webosphere.Stephanie Allmon is theStar-Telegram Life & Arts editor. 817-390-7852, @FWST_YourLifeHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
