More Comments on WaiWai
Maybe I'm beating a dead horse now, but an article in the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Japan's No.1 Shimbun [PDF] completely misses the point about why people have complained about the Mainichi running the WaiWai column.
The article starts out promisingly enough by asking, "So how did stories like this wind up on the Web site of the only Japanese newspaper company to have won a Pulitzer Prize?"
Excellent question! Let's read on.
There were those who firmly believed they shouldn’t have, and after angry protests by bloggers, including the ubiquitous “2-channeler” bloggers and an anti-Korean right-wing group, the Mainichi axed WaiWai in June. Some of those claiming it portrayed Japan as a nation of perverts, or even that it led to an increase in sexual assaults on Japanese women abroad, were undoubtedly sincere. For others, it appears to have been simply a politically motivated attack on the Mainichi.
Anonymous angry people and political intrigue! But it seems they raised a big enough stink that forced the Mainichi to apologize and launch an investigation:
The Mainichi released the following statement on July 20: “The Mainichi Newspapers Co., Ltd. continued to post extremely inappropriate articles in the WaiWai column of the Mainichi Daily News (MDN), its English Web site. We have reported the results of an in-house investigation into the case on Pages 22 and 23 of the July 20 morning edition of the Mainichi Shimbun.
So, how about that investigation? Whose fault was it? What insights were gained into what was going on behind the scenes?
How did it come to this, and why is a nationalist group, whose raison d'etre is to stop Japanese-born "Koreans" from acquiring citizenship and voting rights, so concerned with a column that translated lurid, and often hilariously unbelievable, stories from the Japanese gutter press?
Obviously not. The article suddenly decides to focus on some unknown nationalist group. Aki at Fusou Note points out that this group is inconsequential:
After delivering misinformation on the fuss, the article in the Number 1 Shimbun suddenly changes the topic to a minor group who made a demonstration in front of the Mainichi's headquarters.
The Zainichi Tokken o Yurusanai Shimin no Kai - Citizens' Group against Special Rights for Zainichi (Japan-born Koreans) – organized a demonstration in front of the Mainichi's headquarters on July 2 after WaiWai had been purged and punishments announced.
Several days before the demonstration, the Zainichi Tokken o Yurusanai Shimin no Kai (Zaitokukai) announced on various boards at 2-channel that they will demonstrate in front of the Mainichi's headquarters. However, majority of 2-channelers who had been criticizing Mainichi responded to the call by warning other readers that attending the demonstration by the Zaitokukai would be perceived by other people as if the anti-Mainichi movement was organized by the particular organization. Many 2-channelers advised other readers not to attend the demonstration. Thus the demonstration on July 2 was a very small one. The attempt to attribute the anti-WaiWai movement to that minor group is just a delusive attempt to create the "Byzantine machinations" from nothing.
Aki, by the way, tears into the FCCJ article, charging that it whitewashes the nature of the debate over WaiWai. It's a good read and explains much about the furor over WaiWai.
Back to the article, it gets better. It never dawns on the author that a major newspaper running sleazy articles could be a problem or possibly one of the reasons why people complained in the first place:
It was during this time that WaiWai introduced a system called "People’s Pick" that allowed readers to vote for one of 10 headlines from that week’s tabloid stories that they would most like to see translated in full. No gold stars for guessing the results of this experiment in interactive journalism – any headlines that carried even a hint of sex were the overwhelming choice, week after week.
WaiWai translations came to lean increasingly toward sex, with occasional forays into crime, and whatever else was out there. That is not to say it was without redeeming features; the column was highly entertaining, filled with humorous word plays and asides, while giving an insight into some of the excesses of Japanese popular journalism. It was also very popular, attracting a lot of traffic to its pages, and thus the advertising required to keep the online edition viable.
The problem is right before the author's eyes but since WaiWai was a popular and funny he gives it a pass.
Links to WaiWai stories began to appear on Web sites, forums and blogs around the world, some of whose readers, judging by many of their responses and posts, were seemingly unable or unwilling to recognize that these stories were often nothing more than the product of a tabloid journo's overactive imagination.
No matter how much of a diet of "those wacky Japanese" stories someone has been weaned on, no matter how much of a Japan-hater someone may be, no matter how detached from reality someone is, could anybody truly believe that Japanese fisherman get oral relief from razor-toothed moray eels? Evidently, some did.
People who still don't understand what's wrong with WaiWai need to read David Marx. The point demonstrated in his post is that the meme of Japanese being a sexually depraved society is all too quickly and easily spread. Just as the Mainichi lent credibility to Jitsuwa Knuckles by printing translations of its articles, bloggers and forums do the same by mindlessly posting stories again and again and again and again and again. These are otherwise intelligent people, duped by the Mainichi, who help perpetuate ignorance.
In March this year, some Japanese online forums started buzzing with posts about the "vulgar" stories the "respectable" Mainichi was allowing to be displayed around the world in its English-language WaiWai column. Complaining letters, e-mails and phone calls began reaching the company. It announced a review of the contents, but the response failed to satisfy the protesters, and the clamor for axing the column intensified.
A pox on all those Japan-haters and other people detached from reality. What the hell is wrong with a newspaper publishing stuff that is not true? Getting your cock sucked by an eel may be totally fucked up, but when it says "That's a moray!” that's comedy gold. This is the argument of a moron: Any moron can derive entertainment out of a WaiWai column but it is generally the moron who takes delight in doing so.*
The article finishes off with links to old WaiWai columns so people can relive the laughs. Curiously, this section is titled "The WaiWai Legacy." Presumably, the author intends this to mean a legacy of punchy writing and humor. The reality, however, is a legacy of intentionally sleazy and untrue stories, a complete lack of editorial oversight, and the sullying of the Mainichi's integrity.
* Taken from Sir Arthur Harris in Bomber Command (p.65). Who knew the guy had such a biting wit?
Further reading
(Because nobody seems to have noticed this.)
Investigation of problems with English site (1) Results of in-house investigation into WaiWai column
Investigation of problems with English site (3) External warnings were ignored
Chronology of problems with English-language site
Analysis of the investigative team
Comments from Members of the Open Newspaper Committee (1) Michiko Yoshinaga, Nonfiction Writer
Comments from Members of the Open Newspaper Committee (2) Kunio Yanagida, Writer
Comments from Members of the Open Newspaper Committee (3) Akira Tamaki, Freelance Journalist
Image of Japanese newspaper (Page 1) showing results of the investigation [PDF/1.7MB]
Image of Japanese newspaper (Feature Page 1) showing results of the investigation [PDF/966KB]
Image of Japanese newspaper (Feature Page 2) showing results of the investigation [PDF/696KB]
Comments
It's amazing that an
It's amazing that an organization of journalists would defend a newspaper that has knowingly published stories that are untrue. It's also interesting that the writer at the FCCJ paper completely ignores the copyright issue.
Yeah...
Can't completely agree with you on this Shawn.
Undeniably there is the sense that Wai Wai was playing fast and loose with some of the translations to their own benefit. To what extent that practice changed the tone or context of any of the tabloid articles that appeared there isn't clear, at least to me.
On the other hand, don't we have a responsibility to exhibit a degree of critical thinking when we read the newspaper? Isn't it naive to take everything at face-value, and shouldn't we be able to infer from sensationalist subject matter (and they way in which they are written) at least something of the intent of the author?
And - I'm aware we're talking about something as sleazy as the translations of Japanese tabloid press articles- but doesn't the Mainichi's reaction to the 2-ch complaints smack (at least on a visceral level) of kowtowing to a vocal minority ?
They took the whole damn paper off line! Why not jusr leave it at blocking the Wai Wai section?
To what extent that practice
They completely changed the intent of some of the articles, portraying them as true stories when the original magazine articles made clear that they were not.
Sure, but that doesn't in any way absolve a newspaper from its responsibility. Newspapers make errors all the time, but those are generally forgiven. Why? Because they are in most cases honest mistakes. But what we have here are not in any way honest mistakes; quite the contrary, there was a great deal of dishonesty involved, as MDN was knowingly and intentionally publishing untrue stories. Full stop. To attempt to foist responsibility for the inevitable resulting misunderstandings onto the reader is incomprehensible. This is like blaming a customer when he gets sick from eating rotten meat that was mislabeled by a supermarket. You can say that he should have sniffed it before eating it, but the responsibility lies wholly with the supermarket.
There simply is no defense for what MDN did. They might as well have passed on rumors from 2channel or things written on a bathroom wall.
Fast and Loose
Matt,
The investigation into this brouhaha noted that there were significant differences in content in the print edition and on the website. Specifically, content became noticeably sleazier after the Mainichi went online. Translations were also embellished. Go back and read Comments on the End of WaiWai and follow the links to the investigation .
First, let me reiterate a point that has been beaten to death: the Mainichi is one of Japan's leading newspapers. None of Japan's major dailies publish sensationalist content, and I'm wiling to bet the outrage from readers would be massive if anything from Jitsuwa Knuckles or some other bottom-of-the-barrel tabloid appeared in their pages. The
Mainichi was printing stuff in English that no newspaper in Japan would ever think of printing in Japanese.
Second, thank you for helping illustrate the point I was making. Sure, people should read newspapers with a critical eye, but as I've pointed out, a lot of people clearly did not, and that apparently includes you. The English website is still online at http://mdn.mainichi.jp/index2.html. The site is updated throughout the day and all of its RSS feeds are working fine.
I don't believe so. The investigation showed that the Mainichi received several complaints about WaiWai over the past 7 years but ignored them. As Aki points out in this blog post, the Mainichi apologized but did not specifically mention that the WaiWai columns contained lies. This further angered readers because it wasn't what they were after. They wanted the Mainichi to acknowledge that it was publishing stuff that was untrue. Rather than kowtowing to a vocal minority, I think the argument can be made that this is an example of public activism.
I think it's a mistake to focus solely on the complaints from 2Ch. Sure, 2Ch was involved in this, but that doesn't excuse what the Mainichi did. The heart of your argument amounts to nothing more than a temper tantrum--A group of people took away your beloved WaiWai column and, whatever the motives of this group, they are automatically assumed to have bad intentions. That simply doesn't fly when you understand how negligent the Mainichi was for several years.
The question you need to ask is why defend a newspaper that knowingly published stories that were untrue and ignored its readers when they complained? Moreover, how does the FCCJ (or anyone for that matter) write about the WaiWai column without mentioning the results of the investigation posted in English and in Japanese for the world to see on the Mainichi's website?
I'm with you Matt. I really
I'm with you Matt.
I really have to question anyone who took these obvious piss takes seriously. WaiWai was never presented as front page news and anyone above the age of 6 could reasonably see that. It was a separate section and its writen style made it clear it was not serious.
I hate Bill O'Reilly on Fox. He's is the king of truly dangerous lies.......yet..........he has the right to speak shit and intelligent people ignore him or laugh at him.
Treat people as adults. Relax. Don't be so sensitive. Laugh a little!
I really have to question
You can question all you want, but quite a few people obviously did take the stories seriously based on the Mainichi's (once) good name.
O'Reilly is a talking head. His job is to shout his opinion, such as it is. WaiWai was not an opinion column.
And since you bring up Fox News, what's their reputation like? Is it good? Would you hold them out as a model for the editorial policy of a national newspaper? I sure as hell wouldn't. Don't you think there would be some outrage if BBC World starting running Bill O'Reilly commentaries as news pieces?
Rapidly approaching flogging a dead horse status
Frankly I used to have a bit of a laugh at the waiwai column some times. I'm kind of sorry it is gone, but not overly so. I admit that a few people took the waiwai as fact, but I would suspect that the vast majority knew the columns were fiction. I disagree that the mainichi tried to present the columns as fact, it was clearly a separate section intended to entertain and I believe it did say something along the lines of "wacky stories from japan's wild weeklies". I question the judgement of anyone who believed waiwai to be real news stories. But on the other hand people believe pro-wrestling is real, so I guess some people are that stupid.
PIG and Shawn do you have an issue with waiwai style translations being published on a separate site? Is your issue with that style of journalism? Or is it only with the fact that it was published on the Mainichi website and people could mistakenly believe it due to the good reputation of the Mainichi print edition and other factors.
Also do the Japanese tabloids who publish this rubbish clearly identify that their stories are also fiction?
PIG and Shawn do you have an
Well, (another) one of the problems is that you can't just translate anything you like and put it up on a commercial site for copyright reasons. But if the original rags, like Jitsuwa Knuckles, were to translate their own articles and put them up on the Net, then fine. It's their article, it's their name on it. Jitsuwa Knuckles has zero credibility and zero visibility, so it's not at all comparable.
I'd have to say that I fundamentally dislike magazines that print complete bullshit. That does not apply to every Japanese weekly, but it does most definitely apply to the ones with "Jitsuwa" (True Stories) in the title. Simply put, that is not journalism.
This is by far the biggest problem, yes. If the New York Times started a (insert foreign language here) version of the paper and included translations and summaries of articles from the Weekly World News, I would have a serious problem with that.
If they're trying to pass it off as a true story, no, they don't. One of the other problems, however, is that WaiWai on occasion blatantly ignored such disclaimers, like the one about the bestiality restuarant, as the original article only presented that as an urban legend, whereas WaiWai presented it as a real place.
Giddy up!
No,"wacky" was never used. The disclaimer was: WaiWai stories are transcriptions of articles that originally appeared in Japanese language publications. The Mainichi Daily News cannot be held responsible for the content of the original articles, nor does it guarantee their accuracy. Views expressed in the WaiWai column are not necessarily those held by the Mainichi Daily News or the Mainichi Newspapers Co. You can't claim to be a leading newspaper and use this flimsy disclaimer to publish sleaze at the same time.
I don't think the Mainichi tried to present WaiWai as fact, either, but they knew that what they were publishing was complete bullshit. As I've said before, no Japanese daily would ever think of running stuff from the likes of Jitsuwa Knuckles at the risk of angering its readership and harming its reputation.
No, and my answer is the same as PIG's. You forget that much of the content translated in WaiWai did not belong to the Mainichi to begin with.
Yes. Jitsuwa Knuckles is not journalism, it's garbage. I'm not saying that because I'm a prude but because publications like JK lack credibility.
Absolutely, for the reasons PIG gives.A big problem is that the majority of foreigners here and abroad are unable to tell the difference because 1) they don't/can't read Japanese and 2) don't know which publications are the quality ones and which ones are dodgy ones. When a Jitsuwa Knuckles article appears in the Mainichi, it gains credibility by virtue of the Mainichi's good reputation. I highly recommend reading this post as an introduction to Japan's weeklies and tabloids.
The quality publications don't because they care about their reputation. The bottom-of-the-barrel weeklies don't either because they don't care about being sued. But the public is able to separate the wheat from the chaff just as when somebody mentions The National Enquirer, you know precisely what it's about without reading it because its reputation precedes it.
One reason why the bottom-of-barrel tabloids don't care about being sued is because the monies awarded in defamation suits are low to the extent that it pays to publish something incredibly outlandish and get sued for it because the revenues earned by selling extra copies of their magazine generally offsets the cost of losing in court.
I have to laugh how
I have to laugh how apologists for the Mainichi Shimbun - such as Pig and Shawn - seem to think Mainichi News is a "quality publication" or even "reputable".
Newsflash, guys, IT ISN'T. Its only suitable for taking as spare toilet paper on camping trips.
Are you seriously saying this supposedly respectable news organisation, for 7 YEARS - I will repeat that - 7 YEARS - didnt know what Wai Wai was doing? All of a sudden they realized, after some angry bloggers complained, "oh, some of our journalists have been making up stories...hang on these stories arent true... Lets take action!"
They knew all about, financially supported, and endorsed Wai Wai all along. To deny they did not is absurd.
Bottom line: If Wai Wai wasnt reputable, then neither was, or is, MDN.
I wonder if the Editor in Chief of the MDN rubbish rag actually bowed and cried for the public to apologize for the "made up stories" he had printed for 7 years?
I seriously doubt it.
Observer,
I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. I agree, the people in charge either knew and didn't care or were completely asleep at the switch. Either way, they come off looking very bad. No one has denied that they supported WaiWai, and I think the people at the top of MDN (which includes Connell, who was the editor and not just a writer, and his supervisor) should have been dismissed.
Observer
I take it then that you agree with the arguments I've made? What the Mainichi did made the paper look bad.
The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them. -Albert Einstein
i can think critically
...but can the foreigners who know little about my country do the same?...
I'd get somewhat annoyed if some japanese writer tried to represent my country as a nation of dingo sodomizers. I'd know it was rubbish, but I might not be so confident of japanese being able to make that distinction, especially if the story was published in a major newspaper (or news website etc) of my country.
I can see it now "Sexy screen
I can see it now
"Sexy screen siren dabbles in dingo donger"
I think its about time to agree to disagree.
Thanks for taking the time to
Thanks for taking the time to reply, I do, in all seriousness appreciate it. I enjoy your site and I'm sure it's a valuable source of information for many of us living here (and for those considering coming over).
And just right off the bat - thanks for the hotlink to the mainichi - having had it bookmarked, and having googled it, I couldn't get past the apology letter page.
...There seems to some confusion in that I'm not actually presenting an argument here, I was responding to your post on the article in the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Japan's No.1 Shimbun. I would, otherwise have commented on the previous thread.
Although it's quite apparently not the case, I had thought it was obvious that I was not entirely disagreeing with you but rather defending the position of the Foreign Correspondent's Club article.
Sorry for not making that clearer in my post.
I am, in point of fact, not a fan, nor regular reader of Wai Wai. Until I read the FCCJ article I was unaware that the Mainichi had won a Pulitzer for Photography in 1961. I've never heard Japanese friends, co-workers, or even clients speak of the Mainichi with anything other than disdain or otherwise take it seriously. I do have a certain amount of respect for the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Japan, and I can understand that they would approach the story from the angle that they did.
In any case - yeah, I think the few of us that appear to be interested in the story are beating this to death - I agree with a lot of what you've written, I don't like the way the Mainichi has conducted itself, I do think they supplied enough of a preface to the readership that the Wai Wai articles should have been read wioth a grain of salt.
A Second Look
Matt,
If your response is to the FCCJ article, let's take a look at it. What about it do you like? The more I think about it, the more I think the article is a complete whitewash. It twice asks how could stories of dubious nature end up on WaiWai but never offers an answer. Seriously, how do you not bring up the Mainichi's investigation when you wonder how this all happened? That's a huge omission.
The investigation is an important part of the equation, but instead the FCCJ article ignores it. While the article starts out promisingly enough--So how did stories like this wind up on the Web site of the only Japanese newspaper company to have won a Pulitzer Prize?-- it's a ruse because the author has already made up his mind: he's incredulous.
Consider:
The author then pulls this nugget out of thin air:
"Hey look! I found one article that wasn't sleazy! Point proven." That's incredibly weak.
The article ends with "Whether "that kind of stuff" has a place on a Web site belonging to a "serious" newspaper, is open to debate" but we are never told what the debate is. Had the article tried to answer the questions it posited, it might have contributed to a better understanding of the issue. Instead, the author writes pap.
Well, we'll have to agree to disagree on this point. I still feel you're too generous in your assumption. Newspapers should not be running vulgar stuff out of Jitsuwa Knuckles, even if there is a disclaimer. A disclaimer does not give you immunity from error. I'm surprised that people would give the Mainichi a pass for its negligence just because WaiWai was a guilty pleasure for many readers.
Is there no room for fiction anymore?
Most of the arguements supporting the axing of the Wai Wai column revolve around the principle that the WaiWai column was appearing in a "serious" newspaper, and could be percieved by idiots to be true. As others have pointed out, this is a weak arguement, so I will beat the carcass again.
1) Newspapers do not report the "truth" no matter how "serious" they are. Readers of newspapers that take news stories at face value are idiots in the first place, and are arguably being misinformed. This is why there are corrections to news articles, which no one reads. As another poster has pointed out, all information and reading needs critical analysis by each reader.
2) Proximity does not lend credibility. Public libraries all over the world should be shut down because they house fiction and information or material that some would argue to be damaging to a race's reputation, or is too "racy" or vulgar. At the public library near my home, right across the aisle from the non-fiction are romance novels portraying Fabio look-a-likes caressing a Southern Belle. Is the Public Libary, a "serious" source of information, research and learning, telling our young teens that all southern American women in the past were sex - crazed ravenous goddesses that thinking about nothing all day but men's loins? If thats the case, news channels shouldn't be allowed to run advertising, as it could be mistaken by retards to be news.
3) Even "serious" news columns all over the world run items that aren't news, or are fiction. Look at newspapers in the US, there is a Comic section, Lifestyle section, etc. These are certainly not "serious." Why is MND not allowed to have a fun section as well? Sure it may be of an adult nature, but most of the material is inneuendo, and certainly our public librarys have soft-core porno romance novels that are more explicit.
My ranting aside, I really hope the MND English site as a whole closes permanently. Any publication organization that so easily bows to public opinion does not deserve to be taken "serious"ly. I would certainly not trust MND's news articles to be objective or "truthful" if the organization is so weak to public or political pressure.
No convincing argument
I have yet to see a convincing argument to the contrary. You're basically saying that people who take offense to the WaiWai column are idiots. Are you sure the problem isn't sour grapes on your part because the column was pulled?
I don't understand what you're driving at. You're defending the MDN's prerogative to print whatever it wants, including lies and distortions, while hoping to see the newspaper go bankrupt? Maybe you've wrapped the tinfoil too tighly around your head?
The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them. -Albert Einstein
Very weak arguments, Nin-NIn
1. Newspapers are in the business of reporting the truth. True, they don't always get it right, but they try, and they generally do a good job. People who knowingly run untrue or plagiarized stories tend to get the boot, and that's exactly what the Wai-Wai editor was doing.
2. Libraries don't put romance novels in with the reference books.
3. Newspapers don't run comics on the front page and claim that they're news.
the path to ignorance is paved by ...
That library analogy wasn't worth starting this thread again.
Seriously, does no one have any dirt on G.com NOVA these days? Those slimy bastards can't be left alone.
Apparently...
I already posted this once, and it was taken down
???
Not enough swear words?
Anyway, my former students tell me they went to several neo-nova schools, to find there were no teachers working there. So of course, they have now been left even more disillusioned and reluctant to get burned twice.
"Oh please pay a big chunk of money, up front, and as soon as we get a teacher, we'll let you know"
I mean.... the nerve! They're certainly continuing in the finest Nova traditions. Scumbags!
Wrong thread
I think you want the next thread over.
The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them. -Albert Einstein
OK then, I'll...
just turn right at the next mouse
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