CHINO, Japan, July 8, 2021—For weeks since the original schedule of the Tokyo Olympic Games – late July 2020 – was derailed by the Covid-19 pandemic and postponed by one year, leading media entities and journalists have been warning about the danger of the pandemic’s spread and urged the International Olympic Committee and Japan to call it off or postpone it again. But none of them as far as I am aware said they will boycot the coverage, and in fact, all are gearing to cover the games – even though Japan’s infections are screeming to rise sharply. It’s the reason why journalists cannot be trusted if not all of them.
What’s going on?! My take is that they all are after money. In the fast place, most major Japanese media – newspapers, television networks, Internet sites – are sponsors, including the Asahi newspaper group, Mainichi, and so on. Japanese media not alone: New York Times, Washington Post, and wire services, which wrote in editorials and articles, pieces fearcelly opposted to the games’ opening, have not declared that they will boycot coverage. News wires that delivered articles that suggested they were opposed to openining are now covering nitty-gritty details in the run-up to the games, which start in two weeks.
Reuters, for example, released a lengthy report about how Japanese sponsors are coping with surging Covid-19 infections – clearly covering it because it can generate viewers.
Members of the Foreign Press In Japan (FPIJ), which include editors and reporters from the local bureaus of foreign newspapers, wire services, television networks and others, as well as freelance that account for the bulk of FPIJ, are registering their names with the Japan Olympic Committee for coverage. When the pandemic hit Japan head-on, they expressed opposition to the games.
But they have transited to covering the games. One FPIJ member told The Prospect that he thought it was his ‘responsibility’ to cover the games. What a BS! His real purpose is to get into the Olympic village and interact with athletes, as well as getting paid!
Sometime over the past two decades or so when the global media had undergone a sea change with the internet’s penetration into the industry, media policy and moral also have changed dramatically, to one that’s driven by money rather than by journalism ethos, as was elucidated often by such luminaries as Jim Lehrer of the PBS and further earlier Walter Cronkite.
Maybe time has changed for good.
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Insight Into the Future