Australian Anti-Whaling Video “Aimed at Japanese Children”

An Associated Press article about Australia’s newest anti-whaling measure has been picked up today by many English language newspapers:

The Australian government on Tuesday launched an anti-whaling video message aimed at Japanese children on the popular YouTube Web site.

The video, which contains Japanese subtitles, features footage of humpback whales frolicking on the high seas and Australia’s Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull interviewing school-aged Australian children who oppose Japan’s scientific whaling program.

Upon hearing reading this, I rushed to YouTube and found the video in question, which is embedded here:

Did anyone at the Associated Press even bother to watch the video before writing about it, or did they just print whatever the Australian Environmental Ministry had prepared for them? Did the creators of this video actually think children would be able to sit through such a video?

Over 90% of the video is Mr. Turnbull droning on about whaling policy and the video is lacking attention-getting visuals or music. The article isn’t clear about what age group of children this video is aimed towards, but the fact that they have chosen to subtitle the video instead of dubbing it over in Japanese pretty much assures that most children will quickly lose interest in this video. If they really wanted to make an appealing video, they would have been a lot better off with something like the Greenpeace anime commercial.

But was this video, as the news article suggest, aimed at Japanese children? I have serious doubts about such a claim. In addition to being incredibly boring, the video also lacks any Japanese language description or search tags on YouTube, making it impossible for any Japanese children to find it [unless they were searching the net in English]. In such a context, it would appear the video is a ploy by Mr. Turnbull and the Australian government to convince voters that they are making great efforts to fight Japanese whaling. The Associated Press has taken their PR at face value, and newspapers all over the English speaking world are running an article that is little more than bullshit.

Great work, mainstream media.

sod

good corporate video and your right what level of children are meant to view this?
http://higashiajia.wordpress.com Peter Pan

Not to mention
the subtitles have too few words
on each line meaning
that the subtitles have to
switch all to often
in order for children to
keep up with in reading.
TofuUnion

This Australian anti-whaling campaign is completely misleading. Because they are misunderstanding about the activities what Eskimos, Norway, Iceland and Japan are doing. They are allowed to hunt only the types of whales which are increasing their number.

Also this activity doesn’t damage whole the ecosystem of sea creatures at all. According to the ocean investigations, the whales are actually eating about seven times more fish than people catch. If you hunt whales(based on scientific management), people can make use of more fish resource (and of course whale resource too). That’s why those countries are participating at the whaling.

Those who support antiwhaling would probably insist whales are interigent animal. Though for some other people whales are just as same as other edible animals like cows, pigs or fowls. Until 19th century even the USA was whaling to get its oil in large quantity. (This ended when oil well drilling started.)

Klauscore

Sorry, the argument that whales must be killed in order to preserve fish-stocks is false. There is no scientific evidence for it, and, guess what, most baleen whales hunted by the “scientific” (yeah, right) whaling program of the Japanese eat mostly krill (crustaceans), not fish.

So, a somewhat poor video, but a good message.

John

I think Associated Press must have just made up that “aimed at Japanese children” bit. Maybe they just made the very out-dated assumption that because it’s youtube, it must be aimed at kids. The video is just a government electioneering promo about what it’s doing to stop whaling, and how they’re really in touch with what kids think about the issue, and all that. It doesn’t seem to be even pretending to be anything else. The subtitles are obviously an afterthought.
http://www.rokdrop.com GI Korea

I think you are right that this is a ploy by Turnbull. He is under fire for rolling over on the Gunns lumber mill in Tasmania so he can now change the subject by bashing the Japanese over whaling. The Greens in Australia are always bashing the Japanese over whaling and this is just a way for Turnbull to get back in their good graces.
whoismikejones

I think you all miss the point.

So what if the video is not exciting, entertaining and interesting to watch?

It’s message is quite clear.

Stop killing whales for food under the pretext of scientific research.

Why do you japanese crave whale meat? Why can’t you just not eat whale and substitute fish instead? Is it really that hard?

Whales are extremely important creatures in the ocean ecosystem and eating them to satisfy your stomach is self-centered and wrong.

Also stop lying about scientific research.

Everyone can see through that bullshit.
MTV

“They are allowed to hunt only the types of whales which are increasing their number.”

Humpback whales are on the DECREASE you moron. Why don’t you do a little wide reading and look at something other than your Japanese-Government-funded newspaper. Your ignorance has even the Americans laughing at you.

Not a great video by any means, but the message rings true.

http://www.japanprobe.com James

Please read the rules of this site and be aware that comments that contain childish name-calling will be deleted. I’m really getting tired of deleting dozens of comments from anti-whaling commenters who can’t make an argument without having a tantrum and lashing out with personal insults or racist statements.

It would also do your cause a favor if you actually checked your facts before pointing out the “ignorance” of others:

“Today it is estimated to be around 10,000 Humpbacks in the oceans according to the International Whaling Commission, with rates of increase of about 7% being reported for the eastern North Pacific from 1990-2002.

The amount is increasing daily due to better conservation and at the moment the estimated increase is 10% – 14% per year.”

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/536641/1453950 [from the NZ press, which is very much against whaling]

Stephen

Protesting against Whaling is not “Japan-Bashing”. Some of the protestors may have mixed or dishonest motives, but Japan, the nation, is bigger than a single industry and criticism of a specific industry (whether the critcism is justified or not) is NOT “bashing” an entire people.
Adults should be able to have a debate about a specific industry without lowering it to the level of nationalistic animosity. Elements in the Japanse Whaling industry have descended into some very grubby “bashing” of ALL Australians because their little industry is being criticised. Not good enough.
samuel welsh

Its a hard one.
I belive a limited form of whaling can ballance it out .
Inuits have thier craft food and culture based on whales the japanese are similar
with festive,story,song ,poems and meals made from them as far back as 940 ad.
As long as whales in the pacific can roam for tourism and live freely
who should not have any conflict.
samuel welsh

But research and consumption should be made clear though

Australian Anti-Whaling Video “Aimed at Japanese Children”

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