TOKYO, Jan. 4, 2024—Two horrific disasters in the first two days of 2024 notwithstanding, Japan is poised for a rebound this year by bidding farewell to its ‘lost decades’ of economic lethargy in a turnaround that would be turbo-charged with all-new ideas and policies, the business daily Nihon Keizai claims in its New Year special series on ‘Showa (imperial calendar year) 99: Nippon’s Turnaround.’
The newspaper has been making similar forecasts for years and all of them have proved wrong as the Japanese economy continued to weaken, its technologies and R&D activities caught up by other countries, sending its 38-member OECD ranking to 33rd..
On New Year Day, 2024, an earthquake measuring 7.6 in Richter scale struck Noto Peninsular on the Japan Sea coast, the strongest quake since the one that caused the Tokyo Electric Power Co. Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station in March 2011. The Noto trembler has claimed more than 160 lives and more than 300 are missing as of now. On January 2, 2024, a Japan Airlines jet blew up in flames after colliding with a Japan coast guard aircraft at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport. All passengers and crew evacuated safely but 5 cost guard crew members died.
In the series’ first article on New Year’s Day, the economic daily said that 2024 is the year when Japan remembers the Showa era in history book, not as a continuation of antiquated experiences to the present era. ‘The Showa system that elevated Japan to the world’s second place (in GDP and other economic data) has become obsolete,’ it said. ‘Quit Show and pull out young power.’
Forecasting that Japan will become the global top in most economic activities, Japan is actually a wealthy economy than the United States, being the envy of other countries for its medical services, public safety, low birth deaths, low unemployment, and public transportation. Among those, what underscores the world’s envy of Jaan is that the country is at the top of the list of countries that travelers want to revisit, the daily said.
The turnaround and signs of it are evident in such areas as the global share of semiconductor manufacturing equipment; its automakers are gearing to electrification shift from gas-powered engines; and the number of athletes winning Olympic gold medals, it said, citing more examples in the 2nd article published on Jan. 4.
The paper’s editors and reporters must have had sweet dreams that popped when they woke up.
The newspaper announced on July 14, 2023 that its paper subscriptions totaled 1.568 million, down from 1.649 million in December 2022, and digital subscriptions 874,000, up from 823,000.The newspaper did not disclose ad revenue data.
Young Japanese journalists lack adequate training in covering news, most likely including Nikkei reporters and editors as their reliance on smart phones and PCs has increased dramatically in recent years. It probably is a reason why the newspaper is running such a misleading series, drawing statistics on-line and spending little time in interviewing news sources, or thinking and analyzing topics.
As things stand, it may not be a hyperbole to speculate that Japan’s national newspapers may die a gradual death, its five dailies being consolidated further through mergers or halt printing, for degradation of reporting and analytic quality.
For that matter, some community newspapers observed a textbook coverage and layout of the Jan. 1, 2024 Noto Peninsular earthquake, while national papers reported what’s fed by police, firefighters, and other public entities. The Hokkoku Newspaper of Kanazawa has been prioritizing reporting of safety and whereabouts of the affected area’s people, food and medicine supplies, shelters and other much-needed information, as well as casualties and people unaccounted for – while national papers were spoon-fed by the government and local authorities.
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