Posts Tagged ‘media’

Problems with New York Times report on 2-D love in Japan

If you’re a regular reader of Japan news sites, you’ve probably encountered links to a recent story in the New York Times magazine about the “phenomenon” of otaku men who date pillows in Japan. Its author, Lisa Katayama of Tokyo Mango blog, is a writer who has built her career on reporting quirky things about Japan, and most of what she writes isn’t too bad. This article, however, had a few issues.

Those unfamiliar with the facts might think that the “thriving subculture” of ultra-otaku Katayama describes are representative of otaku culture as a whole. Journalist Francesco Fondi wrote the following in a blog post denouncing the article [I've added a link to this quote to explain the Mainichi reference]:

“Nisan is part of a thriving subculture of men and women in Japan who indulge in real relationships with imaginary characters. These 2-D lovers, as they are called, are a subset of otaku culture— the obsessive fandom that has surrounded anime, manga and video games in Japan in the last decade. It’s impossible to say exactly what portion of otaku are 2-D lovers, because the distinction between the two can be blurry.”

Are you sure?! If you have been in Akiba or Toyko even once you know that this “new phenomenon” (as they call it) is fake/made up. Have you ever seen otakus dating their Moe pillows?! Me no…
This is an example of why traditional journalism is sinking and why writers outside the Otaku culture should stay out of it and do not write about it…

Basically they took a classic WaiWai style “scoop” and presented it as a real and widespread social phenomenon in Japan !!

He also noted that Nisan is well-known within the otaku community as a extreme weirdo, and that some think his pillow love photos are just part of an act aimed at getting attention. He’s been around for a few years now, with some of his ridiculous photos becoming internet memes.

Perhaps the comparison to WaiWai is not out of line. When I noticed that Adamu of Mutantfrog was having trouble believing the “more than a quarter of men and women between the ages of 30 and 34 are virgins” claim Katayama makes in her article, I was reminded of something I had read in a WaiWai column. Sure enough, some Googling turned up a WaiWai article from 2007 contained a line that stated, “almost one in four Japanese men aged 30 to 34 remains a virgin.”

Adamu did some research on the statistics Katayama uses in the article, digging through Japanese government reports to find that both the WaiWai article and Katayama’s article made the remarkably similar mistake of omitting the fact that the virginity statistics only applied to unmarried Japanese – not the entire population of adults between the age of 30 and 34. He’s written an excellent post summarizing some other problems with the article, which I urge everyone to read.

Lisa Katayama has denied that she used WaiWai as a source, but she has not shared the specific studies from which she got her statistics. She has responded to criticism through Twitter:

That may have applied to some of the early complaints about her article, but now that a well-written piece of criticism is up on the net, it might be time for Katayama to deliver a more serious response to her readers.

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Foreign Ministry Needs Help Handling Foreign Press

The Japanese government will finally start training its foreign ministry officials to coherently and convincingly explain policies to the international media:

The planned sessions, which will be offered to several officials, including the vice minister, will be getting under way just as Japan gets ready to host several international conferences, including the Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido in July.

The upcoming sessions will include exercises on how to respond to questions from foreign journalists in English during mock interviews and news conferences, and review sessions to evaluate their responses. The envoys’ gestures, responses and clothing also will be subject to review, he said.

Takahashi said the training would be realistic.

“There cannot be any training without using the most difficult topic to answer,” he said, hinting the contentious whaling issue may also be taken up during the courses.

The training will be conducted by a private PR company that will be hired soon. The official refused to disclose the budget for the training program, but said the amount would be “extremely tiny.”

According to the ministry, most of the G8 member states require officials to take training courses on handling the media when they join the ministries or are sent to overseas offices.

Reporting the Nationality of Criminals/Victims

There’s an article today in the English edition of Mainichi Shinbun with the headline “Japanese man arrested for knife attack on foreign lover and son.” Knowing that there is often a difference between the style of reporting the same stories in Mainichi’s different language editions, I checked the original article in Mainichi’s Japanese edition:

Sure enough, there was a significant difference. The English article reported that those involved were “foreigners,” while the Japanese version directly stated that they were Chinese. I’m not really sure what prompted them to shift the article from “Chinese” to “Foreigner,” or why they chose to mention that the attacker was a “Japanese man” in the headline (nationalities are not mentioned in the Japanese headline). Anyone got a theory about why they changed it?

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.