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NBC Parts Ways With One of Its Olympics Analysts After Embarrassing Incident

Feb 12, 2018  •  Post A Comment

An analyst who was a part of NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang won’t be involved in any further coverage of the Games after he angered Koreans with comments made during the Opening Ceremony, The Washington Post reports.

“Joshua Cooper Ramo, who is co-CEO of former secretary of state Henry Kissinger’s consulting firm as well as a board member of Starbucks and FedEx, had said that South Korea is grateful for Japan’s role in its economic development, which remains a sore spot because of the brutality of Japan’s occupation from 1910 to 1945,” The Post reports. “Among other things, Japan’s army enslaved Korean females as ‘comfort women’ during that time.”

Ramo is quoted saying during the Opening Ceremonies: “Every Korean will tell you that Japan is a cultural, technological and economic example that has been so important to their own transformation.”

NBC quickly apologized for the comment by Ramo, who was reportedly hired to serve as an Asia expert. The network said Ramo was hired only for the Opening Ceremonies.

In an email today to The Post, an NBC spokesman wrote: “We apologized quickly both in writing and on television for a remark made by one of our presenters during Friday night’s Opening Ceremony. We’re very gratified that [the PyeongChang Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games] has accepted that apology. We look forward to the next two weeks of competition by the athletes, and to showcasing the beauty of Korea, its culture and state-of-the-art technology.”

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