The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games can be characterised, in part, as a struggle over various kinds of media politics, both domestic and global. In 2007, China instituted new, temporary legislation to enable wider freedoms to report for foreign journalists. The duration of this legislation extends to November 2008, one month after the close of the Paralympic Games. Also, Beijing’s Games are the first in history where the contracts for television broadcasting rights have been separated from the sale of Internet broadcast rights. Moreover, the Beijing Games will be the first Web 2.0 Summer Games, to the extent that users – present or absent from the Olympic city - will enjoy the capacity to broadcast their own material across wireless fidelity (wi-fi) using a range of mobile technology. The additional capacity of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) means that this material can have a wider short-term impact than the official broadcasters. This presents a case where the exclusive coverage of the Games could be diluted or fragmented by new media activists. Yet, stories of prominent Chinese bloggers being charged with subverting the state’s power, creates a dual problematic by instilling a division of contested media freedoms among domestic and international journalists. This paper discusses a range of issues presented by these circumstances, articulating various expectations of how Beijing’s Games will be reported by accredited and non-accredited media, traditional and new. It explores this in the context of discussions about citizen and networked journalism, which reflect two types of proposition on the relationship between the professions and amateur journalist. Finally, it introduces the concept of ambush media to negotiate the mundane practices of many online practitioners, alongside the expected activism that underpins prevalent expectations of new media platforms.