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Daniel Kahl’s Battle Against Misinformation & Hysteria

When the earthquake and tsunami struck Tohoku on March 11th, TV personality and longtime resident of Japan Daniel Kahl thought about heading to the disaster area and helping with the relief efforts. However, when he started to see the hysterical fear-mongering crap that was being printed about Japan in the international media, he found a better way he could help out. Using his Japanese language abilities, he helped translate accurate information about the earthquake and nuclear accident into English and posted it on Twitter. Kahl also made YouTube videos calling on the international media to “stop the hysteria” in its reports. The tweets and videos have been seen by thousands of people all over the world.

His efforts earned him the attention of the Japanese media. Here he is being interviewed by N-H-K news:

Kahl’s work is shown as a small step towards countering the Fukushima radiation fears that have been gripping foreign countries.

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22 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - April 18, 2011 at 11:07 am

Categories: Celebrity News, Foreigners in Japan Tags:

Craig

Didn’t he post a video saying, ‘calm down everyone it’s only a level 4 accident!’ …

Misha

If you had actually read the article, you would have found the link to that exact video.

mati

apparently, on March 18th, he said that “this accident is not a 2nd Chernobyl …
not even a TMI ….”

link to his youtube video on this blog:

http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/03/18/a-message-to-the-international-media-stop-the-hysteria/

Rie

..just check when he said that(March 18th)..please don’t mix up with the info you find out afterword..((at that time(according to “firsthand info” we had) he was right..))..here we go again..

ponta

カールさん
Arigato
Namanama

Why does he get subtitles =/
His japanese doesn’t sound too bad in my ears if not a little weird, but understandable enough. Nothing that would warrent full subtitles.

ponta

His Japanese is perfect, more perfect than me when it comes to speaking with the local dialect.
It is not uncommon for NHK to use subtitles even when a native Japanese speaks.
ex. http://cgi4.nhk.or.jp/gendai/kiroku/detail.cgi?content_id=3028
Anonymous

Well, native English speakers in the US often get subtitles as well, so it’s probably a common thing.

fish taco

Yes, many programs are subtitled for the hearing impaired.
Jeffrey

Not that I’ve ever seen, unless it’s some poor soul with no teeth and a fourth grade education.

The only thing that consistently get’s sub-titles in English are films featuring strong Irish or Scottish accents (think “Train Spotting”).

Anonymous

Admittedly, I rarely watch TV, so it may not be as common as I believe, but I’ve seen plenty of people with perfectly understandable English get captioned.

Rob

Everyone gets subtitles on Japanese TV, even variety shows. It doesn’t matter if the person is a native speaker or not.

fish taco

Except not everyone in that clip got subtitles, only the non-native speaker. I don’t know enough Japanese to judge if the subtitles were required or not. In my opinion they probably asked for subtitles for the 2.5 seconds where they showed him speak English and got more than they asked for. Personally I think they should have put English subtitles up so I could follow along.

http://tepido.org/ LB

NHK is not going to subtitle their own reporter. Although actually they did, in several places, a question she asked him and everytime they did a cut – like when she said “and in Bangkok…” they put titles on the screen that said “and in Bangkok…”.

The interviewee always gets subtitles, native speaker or not, in taped segments (not live). Hell, NHK puts subtitles up when the Prime Minister speaks. So there is absolutely nothing to the argument that Daniel Kahl got subtitled because he is a “foreigner”. Subtitles are SOP.
kujirakira

It’s not just NHK either.
Even Saturday morning tv shows by Kyushu Broadcasting Corp (Asahi syndicate) out of Fukuoka will have subtitles for all the prerecorded portions.
I could be wrong but I believe subtitling happens so much in Japanese partially because technical terminology** can be very confusing unless the kanji are visible. The use of dialects has also been on the rise in the past 10 years, for which subtitling is also very useful.

**I don’t mean just science-related technical, but any in-depth subject develops it’s own lingo. And the low number of available sounds in Japanese means there is a certain reliance on knowing what kanji a sound for an unfamiliar word is referring to.
But even other than that, you’ll find something as banal as gameshows (where it’s all conversational language) will be heavily subtitled so long as it was prerecorded and edited

JS

The tweets and videos have been seen by thousands of people all over the world.

Which is unfortunate because the misinformation distributed by mainstream media has been seen by billions worldwide.
http://www.billowykimono.com Senor Science

Keep on fighting the good fight Daniel!
http://www.asia-view.co.cc/ Asia-view

I think it´s a good idea because the information about the earthquake and tsunami is being enormously manipulated in Western media. To the point of causing hysteria in people about the situation and their relatives in Japan.
Jack

He is such a suck-up. “Yesah I loove Japan” That’s why I try to sound Japanese. Of course Japanese still think I am a henna gaijin but I don’t care because I looove Japan!!”

http://tepido.org/ LB

I think you were looking for this site. Or possibly this one. Either way, you’re in the wrong place.

Hamachiman

I love the cooking shows he’s on.
Karina

As a younger person, I must say, I had no idea he was still around. But nice to hear this.

Daniel Kahl’s Battle Against Misinformation & Hysteria

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