Posts Tagged ‘journalism’

BBC report on Japanese love hotels

The BBC reports on how Japanese love hotels are still doing well during the economic downturn:

Foreign correspondents in Japan sure do seem lazy! This report is a recycled version of reports already made by Reuters and CNN. Like both of those news outlets, the BBC talks to Steve Mansfield, a hotel owner who feeds them PR about the great condition of his hotels and his company. It is unclear just how much this industry is “booming,” but you can be sure that these news reports are helping Mr. Mansfield find lots of investors.

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• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Mainichi will ‘severely punish’ employees who contributed to WaiWai column

The first notice about the shutdown of Mainichi’s WaiWai column has been updated with a lot more information and an apology to readers. Here is an excerpt about the measures Mainichi is now taking:

Following criticism of WaiWai in late May, we decided there was a problem with listing the stories on the Mainichi Daily News site, even though they were transcriptions of articles that had appeared in magazines published in Japan. Stories were withdrawn from the site and we halted access to problematic archived stories. We also asked search engines to prevent past WaiWai stories from being displayed.

We then changed WaiWai’s editorial policy and drastically altered the standards used in story selection. However, there were problems with how past stories had been presented, so to avoid similar criticism from arising, we decided that we needed to come up with a sound editorial structure. This led to a fundamental re-think about WaiWai and on June 21, the decision was made to cease publishing the corner. On the Mainichi Daily News site, we listed the following notice: Some readers pointed out that various articles published in the WaiWai column were inappropriate content for the Mainichi Daily News. We respond to this criticism by halting publication of this column.

While explaining the process in both Japanese and English and apologizing, the Mainichi is poised to severely punish the head of the Digital Media Division, which is responsible for overseeing the site, the manager responsible for the corner and the editor involved with the stories.

Mainichi Daily News, and its publisher the Mainichi Newspapers Co., sincerely accepts readers criticism and will work to provide, edit and publish reliable information.

The longer statement was probably a response to 2-channelers and Japanese bloggers that were unsatisfied with Mainichi’s decision to pull the column without an apology. They had been specifically targeting editor Ryan Connell for some time, and many of them wanted him to apologize and face punishment. I suppose it’s okay for Mainichi to apologize after offending so many of its Japanese readers, but is it really necessary for Mainichi to severely punish the three individuals directly responsible for the WaiWai column?

Are we to believe that the rest of Mainichi’s management was unaware of the popular English language column, which had been appearing for years on Mainichi’s English site? Will the punishments actually lead to improvements in Mainichi’s journalism? Or are they just aiming to satisfy the internet mob by throwing a few employees under the bus?

note: Several hours ago, close to 80% of readers opposed severe punishment. We’ve since been linked by 2-channel, and the results have predictably changed.

[hat tip to Julián Ortega Martínez]

Update 2: Kyodo news has details on the punishments. An unnamed reporter has been suspended for 3 months and four executives have been reprimanded.

Update 3: Yet another update of the waiwai page!

George Washington’s Height Was Average, Americans Have Shrunk Dramatically Since 1776?

FTV news aired a segment today on a new government report that revealed the average leg length of male Japanese students has decreased since the 1970′s.

Experts aren’t exactly sure why boys seem to be getting shorter, or why girls’ legs have shown a slight increase in length over the same time period. Some believe that the diet of today’s children is a major factor in the decrease, but since there have been a variety of changes in Japan’s diet since the 1970′s, it’s hard to blame any one food for the change.

At the conclusion of the segment, one of FTV’s reporters pointed out that Japan was not the only developed country that has seen its average height decrease: Americans are also getting shorter! It is true that studies have shown the average height of Americans is shrinking, but the reporter described the situation with data I immediately knew was completely false. Here’s the video clip of his statements:

Translation:

“This kind of thing has also become a problem in America. At the time of America’s independence, President George Washington was 188 centimeters tall, about the average height Americans at that time. They were very tall, 6 feet 2 inches! But now, the average height of Americans is 175 centimeters. Americans have shrunk by 10 centimeters! It is now the shortest western country.”

George Washington was about the average size of Americans in 1776? This reporter got George Washington’s height correctly, but the rest of his data was just plain incorrect. My American education taught me that George Washington was a tall man for his time, and this seems to be confirmed by historian David McCullough in his biography of Washington’s friend John Adams (having read it recently, I searched out this quote comparing Adams and his wife to Washington):

“Washington and Adams were nearly the same age, Washington, at forty-three, being just three years older. Powerfully built, he stood nearly a head taller than Adams- six feet four in his boots, taller than almost anyone of the day — and loomed over his short, plump wife.”

Japanese viewers who watched FTV’s news report this evening and believed it might get the impression that Americans were once giants, but that simply was not the case. John Adams’ height of 5 feet 7 inches (170) was actually far closer to the national average of that time (about 5 feet 9 inches).

For a time, Americans were considered the tallest people on average in the world, even growing to taller heights than they were in 1776. However, they have suffered a slight decrease in height since the 1950′s, and average height of American men today is about 5 feet 10 inches. Perhaps the fact that Western Europeans have grown greatly in height and pushed America to 9th in the ranking of tallest nations may have created a misconception in that reporters’ mind about Americans being shorter today than at the time of America’s birth?

I understand that reporting about how Japan isn’t the only first world country that has seen a drop in the average height of it’s men might make viewers feel a little better about their situation. One can most certainly say that the average height of Americans has shrunk in the last century, and if they’d reported it in that way, they’d have achieved the “we’re not alone” effect with fair and accurate reporting. Unfortunately, they reported a ridiculous tall tale about once giant Americans shrinking dramatically over the last 200 years.

A few people might actually remember what they heard on the news today and accept it as factual. I just hope I don’t have to run into one of them and be told how much shorter I am than my countrymen used to be.