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How New York Times ignores Japan, except travels

TOKYO, Feb. 3, 2024—I’ve been an avid reader of the New York Times, both print and on-line, and being in Japan, only on-line now. And I have lots to say, complain, and salute about NYTimes – except its chronically biased coverage of anything to do about Japan.

In writing this article, what I stumbled into was by accident; The Dec. 13, 2023 article about the Red Bull Formula One team, ‘For Red Bull and Max Verstappen, 2023 Was a Dominant Year.’ Motorsports fans know the Red Bull’s season achievements are more than being outstanding. 

‘He set the record for most wins in a season, 19 from 22 Grands Prix; for consecutive number of victories, 10; and the highest percentage of wins in a season, 86.36 percent, beating the previous best of 75 percent by Alberto Ascari in 1952, an era when there were only eight races,’ the Times lauded him.

‘As a constructor, Red Bull won 21 Grands Prix, overhauling Mercedes’ record of 2016 when it won 19 of 21 races. With a 95.5 percent success rate, it also beat the 93.8 percent of McLaren in 1988 when it won 15 of 16 Grands Prix.’

I went through the whole article but did not find any reference at all – about the engine supplier, Honda, which retired from F1 in 2021 yet continued its powertrain technical support very actively, for the Red Bull and Scuderia Tauri teams, absent the Honda logos on the machines and driver uniforms.

Was the Times reporter an F1 amateur or his editors were ignorant about how the powertrain plays a vital part – many believe it’s what makes F1 teams – in the series? I won’t know. But Yuki Tsunoda and his Scuderia Tauri team mate Daniel Ricciardo did well, placing 14th and 17th in points ranking – that underscores the Honda engine power.

In September, the Sports Illustrated’s on-line article wrote how significant a role an F1 engine plays for competing teams, introducing comments of a Honda Racing Team executive explaining why the Red Bull continued to grab the victory flag in the 2023.

The Red Bull victory episode is not alone in the Times’ benign neglect of Japan news coverage.

The K-Pop rage is another case. It originates in J-Pop of the 1990s but that’s totally ignored by the Times, as well as that the newspaper’s introduction of Korean cuisines as the country’s traditional, when in fact, many if not most are spun off from Japanese cooking.

I do not recall other similar cases involving the Times’ coverage of Japan now but vaguely recall many. In some cases, it was as if the Times wanted to remind Japan – quite correctly – that the country is no match to China in all dimensions. How Japan looks now from the Mars relative to China is exactly as the Chinese label it: Tiny Nippon. And Japan has become even smaller now than 30 years ago, when the bilateral trade spat ended and nudged Japan’s economic ranking below China and probably below the currently struggling Germany. 

So it’s no surprise that the United States views Japan as a small island archipelago tjat happened to be close to a geopolitically vital area of the East and South China Sea, thus is strategically important for maintaining military balance.

As a citizen of this Tiny Japan, I have a personal dignity and am of the opinion that this country deserves to be covered fairly 

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Why no stories in Japan about cratering U.S. media?

TOKYO, Jan. 27, 2024—When you’re feeling sick and tired, you typically feign healthy composure to people or hide in your room as frail cats do. That may be what’s eating the Japanese media landscape. 

Over the past week, the U.S. and European media had been abuzz with news of of leading newspaper and magazine publishers disclosing editorial downsizing and ownership changes.

The Los Angeles Times reportedly is on the brink of slicing 10 percent of its newsroom staff, which the newspaper cut back deeply in 2023. Last week, The Arena Group, publisher of the Sports Illustrated told its editorial that its entire staff will be let go. And the Baltimore Sun has a new owner who wants to make the paper’s core management policy around profit-making, not on giving unbiased news to the local community.

There are dozens of more newsroom downsizing, coverage cutbacks and shift toward profit-making ownership and management changes in the U.S. media. And that’s not in the U.S. alone. BBC late last year said it was curtailing night-time news broadcasting to save cost.

Those developments already have been reported widely around the world, but in Japan, hardly at all except by Japan Time, an English language newspaper and perhaps a few more. 

For reasons of preventing outside influences and to ensure independence – which critics say is superficial – no top Japanese newspaper shares are publicly listed. Television media entities’ shares are traded but they are subject to strict government shareholding and other regulations.

Among few shreds of information publicly available is the Japan Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) data on newspaper and magazine circulations. Unsurprisingly, newspaper circulations are shrinking fast in Japan as news hungry readers switch to smart phones and others quit subscriptions to rely on SNSs for news.

So, in a nutshell, the real business condition of the Japanese media as a whole is covered by smoke screens. Top papers, like Yomiuri, and Nikkei financial daily are believed to be better off than others because they manage not only journalistic businesses but also a wide array of other sectors. Yomiuri owns the Yomiuri Giants pro ball team and manages the Yomiuriland amusement park among many.

But they zipped their lips to what’s happening across the Pacific because their journalism business is believed to be worse than generally thought, thus they do not want the public to know the hard truth. In what seemed to underscore the industry’s plight, most major newspaper and television entities did not send news crew to the Noto Peninsular earthquake sites during the first several days after it struck the area on Jan. 1, 2024, except to fly helicopters for shooting aerial views of the disaster initially.

Media management might have weighed the cost of coverage, which would have been steep as crew had to reach scenes by foot, from the sea and air, while cancelling high-priced New Year ads.

Japanese media entities thus do not want to report about overseas media difficulties to avoid public scrutiny into home country entities’ conditions.

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Is Japan a schizo country? – It wants higher inflation, thinks still in deflation

TOKYO, Jan. 24, 2024—This is a country of schizophrenia: Businesses and labor leaders say prices are spiraling higher again so they need to form a united front to raise worker wages further, and the central bank thinks the country is still muddied in deflation so it needs to continue zero interest rate policy.

In 2023, labor wages rose 3.58 percent in nominal terms, the steepest rise in 30 years, while government data-based CPI was estimated to have risen about 4 percent, about the same as in 2022. Headline inflation that consumers feel climbed double digit in 2022 and 2023, the reason why workers complain that their paychecks had slimmed down.

On Jan. 24, 2024, a top business lobby, Nippon Keidanren, and labor representatives led by the largest union federation Rengo met in Tokyo. The Keidanren chair, Masakazu Tokura, said in a video message to the meeting that he supports wage increases exceeding inflation. Rengo is demanding no less than 5 percent, the level that Keidanren doesn’t spurn outright.

So both sides want another bout of inflation, making it the third consecutive year of price increases, which consumers say have risen by 30-50 percent, far higher than they earn, thus the business-labor confirmation about spiraling prices and for a further rise for employers to earn more yen and workers to be paid more.

Arbitrarily, the central bank Jan. 23 released a statement that reiterated that Japan is still not out of the deflationary woods so the bank needs to continue its zero to minus interest rate policy.

What may sound contradictory is actually orchestrated methodically for big businesses, which are represented by Nippon Keidanren, and Rengo and other major labor lobbies that represent workers at large-scale employers. Slipping off the employer-labor lobby campaign are small businesses and their workers. Both are struggling under price rises they buy from leading manufacturers and service providers and retailers.

And where’s the prime minister (Fumio Kishida is his name?) who supposedly is charged to support the weak and in need? He is busy putting back the spilled beans hidden under his and other lawmakers’ chairs.

So the Japanese are threatened by another bout of inflation this year. 

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A business entity, not city, manages Noto earthquake volunteers’ personal information

TOKYO, Jan. 19, 2024—The reporter was about to push the Registration button on the website page for registration as a Noto Peninsular earthquake volunteer when he noticed ‘HUGKUMI, LLC’ at the bottom of the page, and stopped and clicked on the company.

The HUGKUMI, LLC website described its business in English, ‘We support welfare, disaster prevention, and disaster relief through the use of IT.’ The site’s Japanese description said the company’s business credo is ‘fielding across Japan the business based on the welfare and information technology concept’ based on Kurobe City, Toyama.

The company offers consulting services, ‘DX: Digital Transformation that focuses on ‘X’ rather than D. We Will Suggest the most effective way to do so,’ it said. The company also holds seminars, it said. ‘Experienced staff in the field of education and welfare will plan the training, give lecturers (sic), and follow up after the training.’

The website’s another page is for registering for volunteers as individuals and organizations, the page that seems to be managed by the company. It said the company’s ‘public relations and communications team is drafting a special site’ for volunteers, and that the Ishikawa municipal office began accepting pre-registration on Jan. 6.

A spokeswoman for HUGKUMI, LLC told the reporter Jan. 19, 2024 that the company has written the volunteer application form for the prefecture government and managing applications from volunteers on behalf of the prefecture government. Asked how volunteers’ privacy is protected, she said, ‘Our contract with the prefecture guarantees volunteer privacy protection’ but acknowledged that the volunteer form does not have privacy protection provisions. A prefecture volunteer section official confirmed to the reporter that the volunteer form does not bear privacy protection terms. Pressed on, the official said that his supervisor is out of office for earthquake rescues and cannot be reached.

On Jan. 18, 2024, the prefecture announced that the number of volunteers pre-registered had totaled 10,900, of which those from outside the prefecture accounted for 7,800.

The Prospect speculates that personal information of the volunteers might be compromised, if not immediately but later from various passageways.

HUGKUMI,LLC was founded in January 2021 by Kazuhiro Nagai serving as ‘executive officer.’ After resigning from a public social and welfare association of Matsuzaka City, Miel Prefecture, he founded a nonprofit in Kurobe in 2013, and started the ‘Green Down Project’ to recycle used clothing downs in 2015, according to the website. The spokeswoman, whose last name is Nagai so presumably his relative, said the company has four executives, including Mr. Nagai, and no employees.

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Noto earthquake slow rescue underscores Japan’s total ineptitude

TOKYO, Jan. 18, 2024—No matter how cumbersome it is, the cold truth is Japan is slow and incompetent. And that holds true in its defense.

On Jan. 1, 2024, a massive earthquake measuring 7.6 hit Noto Peninsular on the Japan Sea coast. As of this writing, more than 230 deaths and more than 20 missing had been confirmed by local municipalities. The number of houses and buildings that collapsed was over 22,100. Water mains, electric power, gas and Internet signals have yet to be restored sufficiently. Save a few main arteries, roads and train tracks remain disrupted. The number of people in temporary shelters and other evacuation locations was more than 17,600 as of Jan. 16, fewer than over 23,000 at the peak period during the first week of the quake. More than 400 are living in isolated areas inaccessible from outside as of Jan. 17. The Noto Airport will remain closed until Jan. 24.

More casualties are likely as rescue and restoration operations progress given that the trembler hit the peninsular when people who had moved out of the area returned to join their folks for New Year might be found. Rescue and restoration work is progressing only slowly as the area is known for steep cliffs and hilly terrains with little flat space.

Even so, in ‘one of the most advanced economies’ of the world, rescue efforts should have begun in large-scale and faster, in particular, by the 250,00-strong Air, Maritime, and Ground Self-Defense forces.

Yet the reality has been that the government of the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, had been able to dispatch only by the trickle for reasons of logistics, the area’s geographical, and weather conditions. Certainly, the SDF crew on the scene did their best at digging out survivors from collapsed houses, Japanese television footages showed. Firefighters who were sent from remote areas of Japan worked by turn at rescue operations too. But the scale of rescue operations was overwhelmed by the earthquake’s impact. So, even nearly three weeks after the quake, many residents are still collecting meals and from municipal and volunteer canteens, television footages showed.

Why this slowness? In a word, lack of leadership. Kishida visited the area Jan. 14 but stayed there less than two hours. Hiroshi Hase, governor of Ishikawa, where Noto is located, also visited the disaster area on Jan. 14 for the first time. ‘In other countries, head of state and other top officials visit disaster areas as quickly as possible,’ Mari Oshima, a New York City resident, said. ‘Even though he’s old, Biden did that to victims of a hurricane a few days after the storm hit the state.’

Xi Jinping must have seen this Japanese clumsiness as a huge Japanese defense blindspot he can exploit if he decides to take over Senkaku Island in the East China Sea as a foothold for his pan-Asia hegemony aspiration.

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Ancient experience at Japan’s driving test center

TOKYO, Jan. 16, 2024—There was no direction whatsoever from the subway station to the place, and when the gloomy dark building loomed across the narrow street before a journalist, there was no doubt that it was the venues.

An obscure, discolored plaque said, ‘Koto Driving License Test Center’, in Japanese. There was no direction visibly posted for the floor where this journalist had to go for his cognitive level test that’s compulsory for senior drivers in Japan. A few steps into the hallway, the place reeked of ancient Japanese government office smell. He had to ask the receptionist, who visibly was not doing anything and looking bored sitting across the counter. She pointed her finger toward the elevator bank.

Going up to the 5th floor and getting off the elevator, the paper signs pasted on grayish plastic walls discolored by age and without esthetic considerations at all told visitors to sit on low blue benches until names are called.

Having arrived with sufficient lead time for the test, he explored the floor to read memos posted on plastic walls. All of them said the same thing: ‘Sit and wait.’ He then took the escalator down a flight, where he found it as for drivers who were ticketed for speeding and other minor violations. He also found a cafeteria, a drab looking eatery that serve ramen and deep-fried plates that few people would care to consume unless super-hungry.

The journalist went back up to the 5th floor and sat on the bench to wait for his name to be called. A half a dozen or so officials, all of them of the Metropolitan Police Department, surrounded about two dozens of waiting people as if to arrest them. The chief, a middle-aged man, shouted that the test would start shortly, pull out the post card notice on which your name is printed and wait.

Shortly afterwards, woman officers began checking the people’a postcard notices, then ushered them into Room 6.

Black curtains were drawn on the windows in the room, where small desks with a drab, hand-made pen stand stood on them. A middle-aged woman officer, who looked like a chief, came in and explained the test procedures. Basically, she told the attendees not to do anything other than what she tells them. The room was a literal school classroom during the World War II and long periods afterwards. She asked whether the attendees had any questions, clearly with the intent of refusal to take. The journalist asked one and she ignored it.

The test was over in less than half an hour and the attendees were given a certificate in exchange for a fee of 1,050 yen. The journalist concluded that this fee was pooled to be used as officers’ salaries, as least part of it.

The test was introduced about 20 years ago in response to increasing senior drivers’ traffic accidents. But in reality, seniors’ share of total accidents has not changed much, so it was for creating government jobs. Moreover, since seniors are required to take a separate driving aptitude test before his date of birth, as well as vision test later for driver’s license renewal, more jobs are created for police and retirees. Aptitude tests are held at civilian driving schools where many local police station retirees work as advisors and other capacities.

Hardly anything changes in Japan.

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A Tokyo district thrives with Korean, Indian, Vietnamese residents

TOKYO, Jan. 11, 2024—It’s a tale of two Japanese cities: One being built with huge taxpayer money with no guarantee of sustainable growth, the other spontaneously started by long-time Korean residents and now bristling with vigor with Indian, Vietnamese, Chinese, and other nationalities.

In the western business city of Osaka, the Japanese government is injecting nearly 1 trillion yen for the 2025 Osaka Expo on a small man-made island in Osaka Bay, and adjacent to the site, construction work is about to start for the Osaka IR project to build a casino and entertainment complex.

In Shin-Okubo of Tokyo, which had been a squalid-looking downtown inhabited by Koreans a long time ago, streets and allays are brimming with Korean restaurants, shops, groceries, with the hews and scents of Asian ethnicities added colorfully in short recent years by the influx of Indians, Nepalese, Vietnamese. Chinese of course are ubiquitous.

One can feel that this small district is prospering on the dynamics that a multiracialism society has to nurture sustainably, reminiscent of Queens or downtown Manhattan of New York. It ca be described as the power of spontaneousness created by the gathering of peoples of many persuasions.Korean eateries offer all sorts of BBQs, kimchi, and other goodies, shops sell Korean cosmetics, sweets, characters and so so that draw visitors like magnets. Vietnamese eateries offer phos, spring rolls and many more. Then there are kebabs, Indian and Nepalese curries and samosas…Ethnic culinary experiences in Shin-Okubo being as diverse and tasty, ramen shops, which typically are run by relatively young Japanese, are not as common as in other parts of Tokyo.

Except a few, such as Aeon mini supermarkets, Shin-Okubo is almost devoid of Japanese establishments, showing that they are overwhelmed in competition from Korean and other nationality entities selling everything at cut-throat prices.

It was precisely how Japan grew out of its 1945 post-World War II rubbles. Among few locations that give hints of those days past are Ueno Ameya-yokocho, where many vendors of leather goods, food, clothing and cosmetics are Japanese nationals (though they are surrendering steadily to Chinese, Korean and other rivals), and the Akihabara electric products bazaar (where Arabs are making strong inroads for PCs and smart phones vending, booting out Japanese).

Shin-Okubo, Ameya-yokocho and Akihabara are the areas that are attracting foreign nationals to do business, and they clearly are growing on their own – and without government regulations, directions and money – on free market principle, in marked contrast to the Osaka Expo and the Osaka IR project that are dictated by bureaucrats and politicians with taxpayer money.

Which city prospers is self-evident.

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Osaka Expo redux: Bureaucracy set to ram through the event

TOKYO, Jan. 11, 20244—A groundbreaking ceremony was held for Singapore’s pavilion Jan. 10, 2024 as the first country to begin construction for the 2025 Osaka Expo as other countries struggle to find builders for their exhibits in time for the April 13, 2025 opening, the search being made even more arduous by the Jan. 1, 2024 Noto Peninsular earthquake. The exhibit organizers, comprising government officials and big business executives, are registering resolve to ram through the event with polite disregard for the horrific disaster.

As of Jan. 9, 2024, a total of 35 countries had exchanged with the Japanese Osaka Expo secretariat to take part in the event, according to secretariat officials. As many as 20 oor so countries are continuing search for contractors to build their pavilions, they said. The expo website (https://www.expo2025.or.jp/en/) cited 14 countries as being committed to build their pavilions, including Italy, China, the United States, India, and France.

The Osaka Expo construction work comes right smack with construction of the Osaka Integrated Resort project (https://www.pref.osaka.lg.jp/attach/30857/00000000/english.pdf) in an adjacent northern location that also commenced recently and is expected to gain full speed this summer, when construction equipment, trucks and workers move around busily. At peak times, some estimates say that more than 3,000 trucks would criss-cross the site, which is a small man-made island.

MGM Resorts and about 20 local businesses would invest 100 billion yen in Osaka IR, which would become Japan’s first legally-recognized casinos housed in new hotels.

The Osaka Expo management cost last year was estimated to exceed 1 trillion yen ($6.9 billion), ore more than 50 percent higher than initially planned. The cost probably would rise further when the event ends in October 2025 as clean-up and other costs are likely to go up.

But the Osaka Expo secretary general, Hiroyuki Ishige, expressed resolve to hold the event even as more than 30,000 Noto Peninsular residents stay in temporary shelters after the January 1 quake. He told a New Year gathering of secretariat employees that preparations are progressing firmly with 35 countries having signed up to build pavilions and more than 60 others had expressed intentions to join (https://www.expo2025.or.jp/wp/wp-content/uploads/0110_n01_20240104_Secretary-General-Ishige-2024-Message.pdf). Meticulous planning, he said, would ‘lead to success’ to show to visitors the future and world. Ishige suggested that the expo doesn’t have a clearly-defined theme but that is something that people who gather at the venues can create – so no matter what happens toward April 2025, he will charge on.

Ishige’s stubborn and confident attitude is not his own making alone. He’s surrounded by a cadre of senior national government bureaucrats, particularly those from the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry, where he retired as a top bureaucrat and then joined METI’s unit, the Japan External Trade Organization. He’s also backed by the Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City bureaucracies, as well as top business leaders.

By the time when the expo venues are clear of pavilions and other structures, taxpayers would hear news that the final Osaka Expo running cost topped more than double the initial cost. By then, however, expo secretariat should be resolved and taxpayers would find nobody they can blame.

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Disturbing signs of Japanese auto industry appear at New Year

TOKYO, Jan. 7, 2024—In the wake of the massive earthquake killing dozens of people and the Japan Airlines jet explosion on 2024 New Year’s Day and the following day, Japan’s auto industry leader, Akio Toyoda of Toyota Motor Corp., January 5 made comments that sounded uplifting to most Japanese and disturbing to others.

A common thread that both pleasers and worriers about Toyoda’s comments is that Toyota is Japan’s largest manufacturer group and what its leader says weighs heavily on the country at large, from politics and economy to society.

Toyoda spoke to an annual New Year gathering of Japanese auto industry executives in Tokyo Jan. 5. The 67-year-old Toyoda served as the chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association for 13-1/2 years through 2023, the longest serving JAMA chairman since its founding in1962. The former JAMA chairmen, Akio’s father, the late Shoichiro Toyoda, and his successor Yutaka Kume of Nissan Motor Co., served 4 years, respectively. The post historically had been taken up by turn by Toyota and Nissan every two years until 2002, when a Honda Motor chairman was appointed for the first time outside the two automakers.

Akio stepped down as Toyota president and CEO in 2023, appointing Koji Sato. He also stepped down as JAMA chairman, giving the chair to truck maker Isuzu Motor Co.’s chairman Masanori Katayama.

Katayama gave his New Year salute to the Jan. 5 gathering and expressed condolences to the Noto Peninsular earthquake victims and toughed on the JAL accident (which did not cause any casualties from among its 379 passengers and crew, though 5 Japan coast guard officers died). He then asked Toyoda to speak – a very unusual move to ask a predecessor to do so.

Toyoda expressed condolences to the victims of the two New Year incidents, then immediately said that he served for 13-1/2 years as JAMA vice chairman and chairman, showing some past chairmen’s tenures and photos on the screen. ‘…all chairmen…served more than 4 years.

‘Later, the chairman tenures became shorter, and it had become a tradition to rotate the post among Nissan, Toyota and Honda…As the industry was poised to plunge into a one-in-a-century streamlining period, I was reappointed as JAMA chairman for the second time (in 2018),’ Toyoda said.

Akio then prided him for delivering on his slogans of ‘the industry that all of us work,’ ‘the future is ours to make,’ and ‘the 5.5 million (auto industry workers that contribute to) running automobiles.’ While saying he’s not the king who is carried in throne by the 5.5 million auto industry people, he observed the New Year sunrise at Toyota’s Fuji Speedway race circuit and the Toyota team won the New Year Ekiden marathon for the first time in 8 years.

The year 2024, he said, is confronted by many tall issues, first, the reconstruction from the Noto earthquake, and then nationwide logistics and distribution problems resulting from labor shortage. To address those issues, ‘being kind and gentle’ to people will become more important than ever, he said. And ‘love’ to Japanese and global peoples, he said.

Some persons attending the gathering murmured that Akio Toyoda spoke to the audience with intent to remind them that he remains in charge of Toyota and industry management. ‘He’s still young so seems to want people to know that he’s still at the helm,’ one observe told the Prospect.

That’d be good as long as the Japanese auto industry keeps abreast of global competition and young aspirant Japanese lock horns with foreign rivals.

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Japan will rebound in 2024, so claims the Nikkei economic daily. Really?

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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