Japanese news coverage has been largely calm, rational, informed, and critical...

It also just looks good because there is something so ugly beside it: the non-Japanese coverage. That, I am afraid, has been full of factual errors and other problems...perpetually late...woefully selective...misleading.

Is the US media getting Japan wrong?

Comments

[Preston Earle]

"Japanese news coverage has been largely calm, rational, informed, and critical..."

I know little about this subject and don't really care very much about it, but I recently read an article about how the Japanese press is tightly controlled by the government. I don't believe it was this article, but that one expresses the same concern. The TPM article you referenced says "on the whole it is functioning as journalism should." The about.com article puts that in doubt.

[Ed Cone]

"The about.com article puts that in doubt."

No, it provides some context for questioning the performance of the Japanese press, but says almost nothing about this event in particular. The one quote specific to this event says, "I see plenty of evidence that [Japanese reporters are] pursuing these stories as reporters would anywhere."

To me, the much more important message of the TPM post concerns the performance of the US media.

We won't know the whole story for some time.

[justcorbly]

I caught NBC's evening news a few days ago, for the first time in years. It was crap. Maudlin music, more time spent yapping about the next story instead of getting on with it, sob story pieces from Japan that shed no real light, NBC correspondents posing as people who actually know something, etc.

I see no reason to watch again.

[Billy Jones]

In this instance, Japan's media has little choice but to report what their people can see without looking to the media.

Wait until you see the price increases on the Honda models (motorcycles and cars) that are currently not being built.