Re: wireless game devices to be banned on planes? Japan

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Rod Van Meter <rdv () tera ics keio ac jp>
Date: March 27, 2007 12:03:33 AM EDT
To: Ted () Dolotta ORG
Cc: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: [IP] wireless game devices to be banned on planes? Japan
Reply-To: rdv () tera ics keio ac jp

> > Today's Daily Yomiuri reports, in a small article bylined "The  
> > Yomiuri
> > Shimbun" (which, I believe, usually means it's a prepackaged press
> > release from somewhere)
>
>         Am I wrong in thinking that "Yomuri Shimbun" means "Daily Yomiuri"?
>         I don't think it's anything prepackaged -- it's the Yomiuri byline.
>
>         Ted Dolotta

Well, this is neither here nor there for the topic at hand, but a brief
geneology and set of inferences and innuendo about the Japanese
newspaper biz, about which I am completely unqualified to talk :-):

Yomiuri Shimbun is the parent newspaper and company, one of the most
prominent in the country (maybe the largest circulation?).  Its editor
(or publisher?) is a well-known arch-conservative here.  The Daily
Yomiuri is their English-language paper, with both a more liberal and
more eclectic bias, and it gets articles from AP, Reuters, The Times of
London, The Chicago Herald-Tribune, the L.A. Times, the Washington Post,
and numerous English-language papers throughout Asia.

Much of the Daily Yomiuri's coverage of Japan is articles translated
from the Japanese, and, like American newspapers, most of the articles
are bylined with the lead reporter's name(s).  (The DY does have some
native-English speaking staff who produce a reasonable percentage of its
content, though I've never seen any of that translated into the Japanese
edition.)

Articles that are bylined "The Yomiuri Shimbun" have seemed to fall
primarily into two classes: those that reflect the opinion of the senior
staff, such as editorials (mostly labeled as such), and a class of
things that appear to be cribbed from press releases.  One example of
the latter was a piece last year on taking care of your toenails, which
seemed to have been written by some flack for the Podiatrists'
Association and printed wholesale by the Daily Yomiuri.  Frequently
short blurbs such as an item about a company introducing a new line of
vacuum cleaners also fall into the same category (sometimes they're just
uncredited, sometimes bylined "The Yomiuri Shimbun").  There are one or
two of these a day in the paper.

Lately, though, more of the front-page articles have featured a byline
of "The Yomiuri Shimbun".  There have been a couple of series of
articles about North Korea and how Japan should deal with it that seem
to blur the line between reporting and opinion; the general gist is that
Japan should have a more aggressive defense policy, and should depend on
the U.S. less.  (There have also been articles about whether Japan can
or should develop its own atomic weaponry, but we won't go into that
here.)

For the harder news stories, including some about this week's
earthquake, I'm not sure why some are bylined with the reporter's name,
and some aren't.  Maybe they're junior reporters, maybe an editor mashed
together an article from multiple sources, including watching TV, rather
than doing primary source reporting, maybe it's some outside source that
didn't want the attention.

At any rate, for this particular piece about game consoles, my gut-level
feel is that a bureaucrat in the office that issued the regulations
wrote a few paragraphs about it, and the Daily Yomiuri translated it and
printed it directly under their own byline, with minimal editing and
almost no reporting legwork.

If you think some of this is journalistically questionable, you wouldn't
be alone, but Western newspaper reporters have been known to accept
leads on stories from PR types -- in fact, I suspect it's common --
though they may do more actual work before the article sees print, the
initial bias (or at least attention-getting bid) of the PR flack may
carry the day.

                --Rod




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