Representatives from major world news agencies take photos at the Yanqing Exhibition Center during a venue tour in Beijing on April 9, 2019. (Xinhua photo)
While China has organized Olympic Summer Games in 2008 and Summer Youth Olympic Games in 2014, hosting a Winter Games is a different animal entirely.
"(The weather at) Beijing 2008 was very hot, while Beijing 2022 will be very cold, in the mountains especially," Edgar said. "The photographers, the cameraman, the reporters will have to deal with very cold temperatures."
"So the organizing committee needs to make sure that the media are well looked after, and then their communications are working properly," he added.
With the explosion of the Internet, the demand for an accurate, fast and unbiased Olympic news service has never been stronger. To this end, the IOC has produced the Olympic Information Service (OIS).
"The OIS does not do the job of the media," Edgar said. "But what it does is having its reporters in every single venue, doing interviews with athletes, doing reports on all of the sports, all of the athletes, all of the countries and regions, so that the media can cover these sports wherever they are."
IOC President Thomas Bach announced in January that the IOC had recognized Xinhua News Agency as an international news agency, alongside AP, AFP and Reuters.
Edgar said that the decision was made due to Xinhua's increasing participation in promoting the Olympic Movement around the world.
"It's a very important recognition. For over thirty years, the IOC only recognize AFP, AP and Reuters as international news agencies, and it now also recognizes Xinhua.
"There's a number of reasons for that. And the main one is China's participation in the Olympic Games. China also has become one of the biggest countries in the world. And Xinhua is one of the largest news agencies in the world with bureaus all over the world.
"Xinhua is producing content not just in Chinese for a Chinese market, but also producing content of multiple languages for an international market," he said.
