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Mainichi announces third-party investigation into inappropriate articles in WaiWai column

Video: One of the many anti-Mainichi videos on YouTube

With Japanese bloggers and 2-channelers continuining to rage over Mainichi’s “hentai” column that translated (and sometimes embellished) racy stories from Japan’s tabloid weeklies, the newspaper has added yet another announcement to its homepage:

Mainichi to announce results of investigation into inappropriate articles in WaiWai column

The Mainichi Newspapers Co., Ltd. is conducting an in-house investigation into the publication of inappropriate articles in the WaiWai column of the Mainichi Daily News.

We will announce the results of the investigation, such as why inappropriate stories were run on the site, in the middle of this month.

We will ask the “Open Newspaper” Committee, a third-party organization comprising of outside experts, for opinions on the investigation results and report it.

Mainichi had previously announced that it had punished several employees it deemed responsible for the WaiWai scandal, but that did little to reduce the anger on 2-channel and the blogosphere. Because many of those internet users did not trust Mainichi’s internal investigation, the newspaper now seems to have consulted a third-party organization.

Meanwhile, English language Japan blog Stippy.com has been reposting old WaiWai articles with the following explanation:

…[WaiWai] was a much loved form of entertainment amongst foreigners in and outside of Japan. To any reader it was obviously not serious news, but it was a set of articles that portrayed quite well how the Japanese tabloids actually write about their own country. In 2008, a small number of Japanese people bought it to the attention of rival news groups that Mainichi was running an anti-Japan column on its website. With the bad publicity, Mainichi was forced to shut the page down, and take punitive measures against the journalists that were working on it, claiming that it was receiving opinions that were critical of the column, such as “its contents are too vulgar” and “the stories could cause Japanese people to be misunderstood abroad”. A perfect example of how Japanese consider what they write in their own script to be an acceptable secret code, that the rest of the world cant understand. When that same tabloid rubbish gets inconveniently translated to English to make light of some aspects of the Japanese people, it gets canned. Stippy.com finds this unacceptable, and will reproduce as much of the Waiwai content as possible in order to bring it once again to our computer screens for a good laugh.

Quite a few of the articles have already been posted, including some of those that most angered Japanese internet users (“Fast food sends schoolgirls into sexual feeding frenzy,” “More mums going down, to ensure grades go up!”, etc.), ~~but it still hasn’t posted the article about Japanese tourists shooting children for sport in Ecuador~~(update: they’ve got it).

Do you think Mainichi should do more to punish the editors and writers who contributed to the WaiWai column?

[thanks to Julián Ortega Martínez for keeping us up to date on the latest developments in this story]

50 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - July 8, 2008 at 3:13 pm

Categories: General Japan Tags: japan, waiwai

LB

Thanks for the update. I will now be able to add stippy.com to my list of “websites not worth visiting”.
George

The article you mentioned is not on stippy, now seems to be there:
http://www.stippy.com/japan-waiwai-archives/sex-rape-slaves-inserted-in-sick-holiday-menu/
_kovert

I’d wager that wai wai is receiving far more attention now than it it ever did before people decided to crusade against non-Japanese readers enjoying the local tabloids.

No such thing as bad publicity they say.
Nihongo De Gomen

2channnelerと日本を非難することでしか自尊心を保てない悲しい在日欧米人って似たもの同士だよね｡
interloper

That youtube video ends on a dumb note.
voldo

Yes, let’s investigate them! And then flog them publicly! And then break their arms and their legs andandandand *breath in* and then burn them at the stake! And then, and then, let’s urinate on the remains and then shoot them! Yeah, that’ll show’em!

For Spagetti Monster’s sake, what a ridiculous overreaction…
kakusei

hahahaha, that video actually compared Mainichi to the New York Times. hahahahahahahaha.
http://pontasmemorandum.blogspot.com/ ponta

I don’t see the point of the video. Why do they write in English?
Isn’t is a domestic issue?
Stippy com is provocative and is doing no good.
1)theoretically speaking , it is probably violating the copy right.
2)It will give the pretext for 2 channeler to bash Mainich and Ryan more.
3)It will just give an impression that gaijins in Japan are doing this to hurt Japan and Japanese
(Contrary to stippy’s claim, there were foreigners who believed that the stories were more than tabloid articles-)
Overall 2 channelers are overreacting and this stippy guys are overreacting and they are making things worse.

Kevin

Ponta, the reason this is in English is because the people on 2chan are hoping to gain the support (or maybe understanding) of English speakers. On Youtube especially, you will find comments from users that particularly controversial videos should be translated into English so English speakers know what is going on. Skim through some of the Japanese-only whaling videos and you’ll see the same thing.

The problem with this is that a lot of viewers will probably be more interested in these Waiwai articles than actually being supportive of the 2chans that are against them.

As, for Stippy, they are purposely being provocative. I think most readers of Waiwai understood that it was a tabloid, and even though it was garbage and probably shouldn’t have been on Mainichi’s website in the first place, the fact that it was forcibly taken down was seen as an affront on foreigners living in Japan by some people. So now you’ve got two camps – the 2chans/right wingers who think the column and columnists are anti-Japanese and racist, and you have the people who could care less about Waiwai but are posting the articles again because they believe the 2chans/right wingers are being anti-foreigner and racist and they want to spite them.

I suspect this issue wouldn’t have been so blown out of proportion if it was ended after the punishments by Mainichi, but now both sides are being stupid and taking everything personally *because* it continues.

http://pontasmemorandum.blogspot.com/2008/02/let-diaglogue-between-j-and-nj-begin.html ponta

The problem with this is that a lot of viewers will probably be more interested in these Waiwai articles than actually being supportive of the 2chans that are against them.

That is exactly what I thought.
I can understand the claim that the video for pro-whaling should be translated into English but I don’t understand why they want people around the world to pay attention to the articles they say are disgusting. Do they want people around to bash Mainichi?—people will just have fun reading the trashy article and watching the angry 2 channellers.
And it is a clumsy tactics. One of their claims was that Mainich was spreading the prejudice all over the world through WaiWai. They are spreading the prejudice indirectly by reproducing the articles albeit in the form of the protest.

Kevin

I’ve linked this before, but this effect is known as the Streisand Effect.

The term Streisand effect originally referred to a 2003 incident in which Barbra Streisand sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for US$50 million in an attempt to have the aerial photo of her house removed from the publicly available collection of 12,000 California coastline photographs, citing privacy concerns. Adelman claims he was photographing beachfront property to document coastal erosion as part of the California Coastal Records Project. Paul Rogers of the San Jose Mercury News later noted that the picture of Streisand’s house was popular on the Internet.

ponta

I don’t endorse some of the way right wingers and 2 channelers protest, but I think people who are angry at the people who are angry at WaiWai look stupid.

Porn appears on rugby programme

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/also_in_the_news/7493256.stm
They look like people who are angry about the people who are angry
about the broadcast.

Sweetwater

The ESL teachers who enthusiastically support Ryan Connell’s trashy articles are not the only readers of the Mainichi Daily News. I think the poster of the above YouTube video clip is hoping to make a few foreigners who read MDN’s serious articles turn away from the Mainichi, no matter how minority they are. In any case, it won’t hurt 2 channelers, since their goal is to put the Mainichi Shimbun out of business.

doinkies

I’m thinking that a lot of the hardcore 2channelers who post such videos were already anti-Mainichi Shinbun for other reasons, and are just using this to bash on them more.

There are several valid criticisms of WaiWai, like how they embellished and rewrote articles’ translations, had stories from both the more reliable tabloids and the totally unreliable crap tabloids that make stuff up (and didn’t bother to differentiate between the two), etc. It’s the loud, hardcore types on both sides that I dislike, because they are using this as an excuse to act like doinks.
http://en.equinoxio.org/ Julián Ortega Martínez

I wonder what would happen if a feature exactly the same thing as WaiWai were run by the Sankei Shimbun. Would it be bashed by 2-channelers?

Sweetwater

Then, do you say you defend the Mainichi Shimbun so earnestly because you are a left-wing activist? I don’t think so. Our society is not that simple.
http://en.equinoxio.org/ Julián Ortega Martínez

I don’t ‘defend so earnestly’ anything here. I just perceive some kind of bias. And I consider myself a “centre-leftist”, not activist (I wouldn’t ever register to a political party).

http://chirimotsumoreba.net Jordan

This is getting ridiculous. It has been established that those WaiWai columns were simply translated from weekly rags into English, so why doesn’t this individual/s (who is supposedly affiliated with monbusho.org) just read the tabloids? I’m not sure what the point of this petty protest is.

Seriously though, who gets this worked up over apparently (I’ve never bothered with WaiWai) terribly written pulp?
Level3

I wonder how the stupid 2chers would feel if the infamous “Gaijin Hanzai File” mook was translated into English and put on the net?

Happy to see a bunch of lies about gaijin as crimnals?
Unhappy in that something so racist was published in Japan?
Crazed that Jpaanese racism is publicized in English, whereas they had no problem when it was in Japanese?

I think their tiny brains will explode.

butin

Your brain seems to be tiny too.

http://aki-akiaki.blogspot.com/ Aki

Mainichi had previously announced that it had punished several employees it deemed responsible for the WaiWai scandal, but that did little to reduce the anger on 2-channel and the blogosphere.

As a punishment, Managing Director and Digital Media Division Executive Supervisor, Yutaka Asahina, was ordered to return 10 percent of his directors compensation for one month. However, at the same time, he was promoted President of the Mainichi Shimbun Corporation. That’s what made many Japanese angry.

Because many of those internet users did not trust Mainichi’s internal investigation, the newspaper now seems to have consulted a third-party organization.

Previous announcement from Mainichi already mentioned that it will consult a third-party organization. Scroll down the Mainichi’s WaiWai page to find the previous announcement. It also has e-mail address and fax number of the third party organization, Open Newspaper Committee. The e-mail address and the fax number of the committee has been revealed to be Mainichi’s one. Also, that committee is not a newly-organized one but it has been serving for Mainichi since several years ago. Previous activity of the committee showed that the members of the committee are essentially supporters of Mainichi. This also made many Japanese angry.

People on 2ch are collecting texts of WaiWai articles to reveal how original Japanese articles were changed and modified when they were rewritten for WaiWai. The texts in Stippy will help them.

Personally, I liked an WaiWai article that described the history of panty peeping culture of Japanese males. I liked that article so much that I once linked it on occidentalism when Matt posted there an article about japanese pervert. If someone on Stippy has the text, I hope it to be uploaded on Stippy, so I can read it again.
http://sleepytako.blogspot.com sleepytako

I like that the same user that posted the anti-Waiwai video also has this (http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=B3SNk0oK0M8) video in his uploads. Hypocritical, perhaps.
hur

Mainichi=hentai

http://en.equinoxio.org/ Julián Ortega Martínez

Following hur’s “logic”:

Mainichi = “anti-Japan Korean propaganda”
Asahi = “communist”
Sankei = “right-wing warmonger, Imperial Army nostalgic”

(please contribute to the newspaper bashing based in prejudice!)

ponta

Yomiuri＝CIA　propaganda, and with that, we have complete list of the conspiracy theories of Japanese media.(^_-)
I don’t think hur is talking on logic, he/she is expressing anger.
http://www.equinoxio.org/author/julian/ Julián Ortega Martínez

And the Nikkei? Chunichi? TV networks?
Sweetwater

Julian, your argument is amazingly shallow and irrelevant. Why don’t you READ these papers for 6 months before making another comment?
http://en.equinoxio.org/ Julián Ortega Martínez

Sweetwater, don’t you perceive the sarcasm? I’m making fun of those prejudices on Japanese media. I’m not even trying to give any “argument” here. I just think some aspects of the discussion are becoming ridiculous…

flonk

who freaking cares! worry about something that matters you goons.
Sikisima Libertarian

Important point.
Whether it is true or not?
Ryann Connell,He talked for a fact.
the magazine of Japan is talking as a joke.

Japanese talks about a Japanese joke to the Japanese.
No problem. A lot of Japanese like joke.

African American calls African American. “Hey! Niger!”
No problem. A lot of African American like joke.

Some Caucasians call African American. “Hey! Niger!”
No problem??
It repeats. No problem??

African people, Hispanic people, Asian people, And, a lot of people who love justice.
Please help the Japanese.
A lot of Japanese are fighting with the racist.

　United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

1. All propaganda and organizations based on ideas or theories of the superiority of one race or group of persons of one colour or ethnic origin with a view to justifying or promoting racial discrimination in any form shall be severely condemned.

2. All incitement to or acts of violence, whether by individuals or organizations against any race or group of persons of another colour or ethnic origin shall be considered an offence against society and punishable under law.

3. In order to put into effect the purposes and principles of the present Declaration, all States shall take immediate and
positive measures, including legislative and other measures, to prosecute and/or outlaw organizations which promote or incite
to racial discrimination, or incite to or use violence for purposes of discrimination based on race, colour or ethnic origin.

http://www.japaneconomynews.com/ Ken

Sikisima,

Just a quick question:

A lot of Japanese like joke.

How do you define “a lot”? What percentage of the population would “a lot” be and how would they break down, demographically? And, do you have links to some peer-reviewed research showing us that “a lot of Japanese like joke (sic)”? I think we need to see some proof of that claim.

Do you like jokes? How do you define “joke”?

I think there’s some background information we need before accepting the first premise.

It looks like you like jokes, I was just wondering.
http://sleepytako.blogspot.com sleepytako

How about stopping those magazines from publishing their filth in Japanese in the first place?

(Or not, I love them tabloids.)

ponta

Some people love pornography and tabloid. I used to enjoy pornographic magazines when younger.

The point is not tabloid and porn should not be published in Japan—I am opposed to banning them— the point is they should be placed in proper place, and they should be represented as reflecting pervert Japanese magazines rather than reflecting reality of Japanese society and Japanese people in general. Mainich failed to do that;in addition, the translator rewrote the original texts to his favor. I think people are angry about that.

ale

You guys should watch this,

http://propaganda-buster.blogspot.com/2008/07/waiwai-tabloid-truth-about-sex-in-japan.html
Pingback: Global Voices Online » Japan: View from Ecuador on WaiWai “Child Hunt”
http://en.equinoxio.org/ Julián Ortega Martínez

About Mainichi’s PR:
http://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/3726561/
Harry

This looks like a Wai Wai spin-off:

http://www.tokyoreporter.com/category/japanese-smut-portal/

This appears at the bottom of each story

“Brief extracts from Japanese vernacular media in the public domain that appear here were translated and summarized under the principle of “fair use.” Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy of the translations. However, we are not responsible for the veracity of their contents. The activities of individuals described herein should not be construed as “typical” behavior of Japanese people nor reflect the intention to portray the country in a negative manner. Our sole aim is to provide examples of various types of reading matter enjoyed by Japanese.”

ponta

The activities of individuals described herein should not be construed as “typical” behavior of Japanese people nor reflect the intention to portray the country in a negative manner

That may not be construed as “typical” behavior of Japanese people but the blog , coupled with the anger over the ending of the waiwai column by some gaijin , may be construed as “typical” behavior of gaijin people, or reflecting the intention why they are here in Japan, which in turn may keep some J women from staying away from gaijin.

Harry

Is it your impression that typical gaijin translate the Japanese weeklies? I thought the usual stereotype of a typical gaijin was someone with poor Japanese skills which doesn’t tally with your depiction.

ponta

I am aware there are various kinds of gaijin in Japan. But you know, prejudice is formed not logically.
And it is true that there is a stereotype about gaijin who are especially fond of Asian women, in some cases, in a wacky way.
The blog will reinforce the belief/prejudice, especially when “gajin’s right activist” who is supposed to be promoting a positive image of NJ recommend worst Hentai articles in Japanese to understand Japan and Japanese.
Don’t you think so?
Harry

I don’t watch something like “Jackass” to “understand” America: it’s entertainment. Likewise, I’m not expecting to “understand” Japan through these silly stories.
ponta

You are right.
I am not talking about the prejudice/stereotype about Japanese but about gaijin that will be formed among the Japanese through these activities by some gaijin who are so attached to WaiWai type of hentai Japanese articles that they are angered by the end of Hentai articles of WaiWai at Mainichi, not content with reading it alone in Japanese , they bother to translate it and share it in English and a social activist for gaijin in Japan, who works hard to get the right for gaijin to enter the place to flirt with Asian girls, the right to get discount rate for gaijin to play with Geishya, even recommends these Hentai Japanese articles to understand Japan.
You know, the books you read and favor tell something about you.
What I am saying is that you can not blame the Japanese entirely if the prejudice about NJ in Japan is formed/reinforced/strengthen out of this situation.
Borrowing the words of the social activist, they might say that
the translations of this specific type of Japanese Hentai articles and the attachment to them are an essential guide to NJ’s attitudes and editorial directives.
あのん

Dude, you are going all around the bend on this one.

http://en.equinoxio.org/ Julián Ortega Martínez

James, the results have been announced:
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/20080720/
Kevin

It’s good to hear your opinion about this Sky. First of all, I have a quick question:

You mention that Mainichi is an anti-Japan newspaper, but can you please include links to articles that you consider anti-Japan – that don’t include WaiWai?

I don’t think anyone has a problem with holding the Mainichi accountable for publishing the WaiWai articles. I agree that the material was inappropriate, but indifference towards the articles stems from the fact that the articles were copies of tabloid articles. Even if the articles were severely altered the tabloid concept still doesn’t change much. Some people read them because they enjoyed reading trashy articles about Japan, and some people didn’t waste their time reading them because the articles were basically garbage.

I think it’s great that protests are being held and that sponsors are being contacted to remove affliation with the website – this is the voice of the Japanese consumer in action. Boycotts work really well in these situations.

The problem I see with the 2-chan response is the “witchhunt”-like approach to singling out each reporter to increase the severity of punishments. Posting personal information and sending death threats seems pretty irresponsible, first of all. Second, it’s great to voice your displeasure with the Mainichi, but the addition of right wingers brings an unfortunate tone to the protests that isn’t necessary to get action taken against Mainichi.

As for the meta-tags, this is definitely something that needs to be brought up with management at Mainichi, but your comment about the Pope is irrelevant to the situation. It’s obvious that Mainichi is trying to increase hits to their website, i.e. increase funds coming in from advertising. I might be wrong, but from my understanding they were meta-tagging all pages with these tags, not just specific ones. Also, and not that it really matters, but meta-tags haven’t been useful since the 90s. Google’s search robots tend to avoid indexing meta tags because they were rampantly abused during the .com boom. The Mainichi list of meta tags shows me they were trying to get hits to their page by foreigners – these tags are definitely searches that are performed by people outside of Japan. There is no connection to the imperial family that I can see, but this is definitely something the right wingers are going to try to emphasize.
Ken

I am not expressing an opinion on the Wai Wai issue – I could not care less. I am only looking at Sky’s comment:

I am Japanse, and a mother of 2 year-old son.

This is not credible without proof.

if you do not have decent understanding of deeper Japanese social issues, you won’t be able to understand our anger just like the comment above “who freaking cares!”

If the people you’re talking to couldn’t possibly understand your anger (no matter how much you explain it), then what are you trying to do?

Protest is the BEST way to defend ourselves and inform the issue to the people who don’t know about it, that’s for sure.

Agreed. Make your voice heard. I wish more people did.

Mainichi has been recognized as one of the top “quality anti-Japan newspaper” as well as Asahi Shimbun on the web.

By whom? Where? An objective third party must make such a decision. Let’s see the evidence.

Mainichi had meta-tagged “hentai” with the articles about Royal familiy. Just imagne, one of the quality paper company in a catholic nation, meta-tagging a key word “pervert” with “Pope” for 9 years, would you say who freaking cares?

Personally, yes. What’s your point? Meta keyword tags are irrelevant to SEO and irrelevant to the issue at hand.

Who decides the metatag keywords?
Of course, Mainich the executives decide them.

Really? You honestly think executives have that kind of time? You think they pay that much attention to websites? If you want to assert that Mainichi executives chose to put the word ‘hentai’ in the meta tags, you better bring some solid proof of that to the argument.

The Mainichi is certainly guilty of publishing articles in poor taste, and having horrendous PR management. To say the executives were stuffing keywords into a meta tag borders on the absurd. If you want to show the world your point of view, it has to make at least some sense. Or are you trying to make the anti-Mainichi people look bad? It’s all too confusing.
http://en.equinoxio.org/ Julián Ortega Martínez

Just imagne, one of the quality paper company in a catholic nation, meta-tagging a key word “pervert” with “Pope” for 9 years, would you say who freaking cares?

I’m from a Catholic country and, believe me, VERY FEW PEOPLE would care. Actually, fewer people know what’s an HTML meta-tag. Besides, it’s not the same thing. The Pope is not the “king” of any Catholic country besides the Vatican. And there are a lot of pervert paedophile Catholic priests out there. And the Church’s policy is to hide it (cfr. Crimen sollicitationis).
http://sleepytako.blogspot.com sleepytako

Criticizing the government is not “anti-Japanese.”

Your political beliefs do not justify censoring any media. I don’t call for banning the Yomimuri.
Kevin

This is not credible without proof.

What’s your point?
Kevin

Really? Who are these “each reporters”? I don’t get it.

Sky, take a look at this blog post that was on Japan Probe a few days ago. This is the witch hunt I’m talking about:

http://blog.livedoor.jp/tonchamon/archives/51964276.html

Mainichi announces third-party investigation into inappropriate articles in WaiWai column

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