Memo to Japan: See the U.S. media as comedians

MEMORANDUM

TO: Those Japanese who still take the American news media seriously
FROM: Ampontan
RE: How to read American newspapers

IT’S UNDERSTANDABLE that many of you are upset at the New York Times and other outlets in the American news media for their treatment of Japan and its leaders. You know better than anyone that their conception of your country is a Japan of the imagination and not the Japan of reality. Their reporting on Japan is a presentation of their own agenda to their readers, using Japan as a template, rather than a presentation to their readers of an accurate picture of the country. And we both know how difficult it is to find a straight news article on Japan from overseas without information that is not distorted, inaccurate, or just plain made up.

But I hope you realize the people producing that media won’t pay attention to your complaints. With the possible exception of lawyers, journalists are part of the most self-congratulatory professional group around, and most Americans have understood that for a while now. Recently, some Japanese discovered that taking out a full page ad in the Washington Post about the comfort woman issue made things worse. The American public didn’t read it, and American politicians never like it when anyone disagrees with them, particularly foreigners. Besides, full-page ads about any issue these days are an old-fashioned idea that no one cares about any more. They’re just a waste of money.

I know that can’t be much satisfaction to you, who have to watch from the other side of the world when the media of a country you consider your closest ally treats Japan so shabbily. What are you to do?

That’s why I wrote this memo. I suggest you take a tip from the approach of one man in Japan. Perhaps you’ve heard of Takashi Nakamiya. Now, I don’t know very much about Mr. Nakamiya, and from what little I do know, I don’t want anyone to think I am his ally.

But Mr. Nakayama is the author of a book called Appare! Chikushi Tetsuya News 23, or That’s Splendid! Tetsuya Chikushi and News 23. I know you’ve all seen Tetsuya Chikushi on TV. Everyone knows that his left-wing extremism makes his News 23 program, which is broadcast at 11:00 p.m., the most biased news program in the country. And everyone knows that he has the uncanny ability to sit in front of the camera and say the silliest things you’ve ever heard.

Mr. Chikushi, of course, has taken a leave of absence from his program because he was diagnosed with early stage lung cancer. Mr. Nakayama recently wrote an article in a quirky magazine called WiLL expressing his wishes for a speedy recovery. Why?

Because Mr. Nakayama claims that News 23 is the best comedy show on the air! He insists that the broadcaster is really a comic, not a journalist. He thinks the program is hugely enjoyable if you watch it for amusement and not for information.

Here are some examples that Mr. Nakayama provides of Tetsuya Chikushi’s humor.

He says he discovered Mr. Chikushi’s true calling years ago when the journalist comedian interviewed Brad Pitt about the movie, Seven Years in Tibet. The film’s closing scenes describe the brutalities inflicted on Tibet by the Chinese as they invaded the country. It ends with captions superimposed on the screen revealing that during their subjugation of Tibet, Chinese forces killed more than one million Tibetans and destroyed more than 6,000 temples. This so angered the Chinese government that it banned Mr. Pitt from ever entering China.

Pitt’s appearance on the program provided the perfect opportunity for some comedy routines by Mr. Chikushi, who is a well-known supporter of China. Though he interviewed Mr. Pitt on News 23, he never brought up the subject of the Chinese invasion. Instead, he spent most of the time complimenting the actor on the film’s cinematography and his performance.

Mr. Chikushi managed to avoid using the words “massacre” or “invasion” during his description of the film. Instead, he told his viewers, “The movie depicted the expansion of Chinese autonomy.” After the actor left, Mr. Chikushi concluded his comedy routine by saying, “It would be difficult to denigrate the Chinese behavior as wicked”.

Once he saw that episode, Mr. Nakamiya said, he was hooked on the hilarity of News 23 and made a point of watching the program almost every night. His article includes other examples of Tetsuya Chikushi’s humor.

For example, Mr. Chikushi personally visited the scenes of destruction after the Hanshin Earthquake. I don’t have to tell you that the fires after the earthquake caused so much destruction, the date of the tragedy, January 17th, is now Fire Prevention Day in Japan. As he viewed the smoke rising from the ruins, Mr. Chikushi commented, “It looks just like a hot springs resort!”

Mr. Nakamiya also cites the program’s coverage of former Prime Minister Koizumi’s trip to North Korea to negotiate with Kim Jong-il. He says that News 23 never brought up the story of the North Korean abduction of Japanese nationals until Kim himself admitted it during Mr. Koizumi’s visit. But, playing the story for laughs, Mr. Chikushi said:

「（拉致被害者に）過失があるとすればそれは、日本人に生まれたということでしょう。」

“If there was any blunder on the part of the abductees, it was that they were born Japanese.”
(Note: the word “blunder” here is for the Japanese kashitsu, which has the nuance of a negligent failure caused by improperly paying attention.)

Now, I almost never watch television, but even I have caught one of Mr. Chikushi’s comedy acts. I saw the show just after the Americans invaded Iraq, when American popular support for the invasion was at its height. Mr. Chikushi was convinced that the American news media was exaggerating the public’s support, so he sent a crew to midtown Manhattan for man in the street interviews.

His crew interviewed 10 people, five of whom were in favor of the invasion and five of whom were opposed. In other words, after interviewing 10 people in a country of 300 million in a stronghold of backers for the Democratic Party, the anti-any-war-at-all-party, and finding half the people in favor, he chastised the American media for overstating public support for the war.

Now do you see why Mr. Nakamiya thinks the program is one of the funniest on Japanese television?

My suggestion is that you consider the idea that there are just as many journalist-comedians overseas as there are in Japan.

An excellent example is the latest New York Times editorial about the recent upper house election. The Kyodo news agency carried a report on it.

The New York Times editorial was not only about the election—editorials aren’t required for election coverage. Instead, the editors were more interested in adding their own gags. Some of the funniest bits involved the Times telling Mr. Abe how he should conduct domestic policy. Here’s one sentence:

“If he (Abe) is determined to stay (as prime minister), he must change course.”

Please, don’t be insulted that an American newspaper is editorializing about how a Japanese prime minister should do his job in his own country. You have to realize that the New York Times is really writing a joke piece here. What news organization would even say anything like that unless their aim was to make their readers chuckle?

If you don’t understand, try viewing it from a Japanese perspective. Imagine the Asahi Shimbun or the Yomiuri Shimbun writing an editorial telling George Bush that he “must change course” in his domestic policy by having the U.S. government immediately apologize to African-Americans for all those years of slavery and pay reparations to the descendents of slaves.

See what I mean? You’re laughing yourself silly at the idea, aren’t you?

The New York Times editorial was full of these comic gems. Here’s another one:

“That means spending far less energy promoting a strident revival of military nationalism and far more on delivering the kind of competence and clean government that made his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, also a military nationalist, such an effective leader.”

Can’t you see they’re playing it for laughs from the line “promoting a strident revival of military nationalism”? What has Mr. Abe actually done in office? He made the Defense Agency a Cabinet ministry. A government commission reinterpreted the Constitution to allow Japan to destroy missiles in flight aimed at the United States. He is in favor of continuing to allow Japan to help refuel ships in the Indian Ocean as part of the war on terror. He thinks it’s OK to sing the national anthem and respect the flag, and he argues that their tradition predates a period that he admits is a shameful part of the country’s history.

If the New York Times wasn’t being humorous, they wouldn’t have said Mr. Abe was “promoting a strident revival of military nationalism”. We both know that if the prime minister intended to behave that way, he would have done many things differently since taking office last September.

He would have been threatening military action with South Korea for seizing Takeshima, with North Korea for failing to come clean on their abductees, and with Russia for occupying the four islands north of Hokkaido that the Soviet Army seized after Japan surrendered in 1945. (Don’t discount that last one; Japan licked the Russians 100 years ago when no one else thought they could. Just think of all the Muslims now in the Russian army who probably wouldn’t want any part of a war with Japan over four small islands in the Pacific.)

Also, Prime Minister Abe would have openly talked about becoming a nuclear power. He would have threatened to turn North Korea into a sea of flame, instead of the other way around. He would be strutting around shouting the Japanese equivalent to “Ein volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!” He would suggest reviving the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

He might even insist on calling Pyeongyang “Heijo” and China “Shina”.

See what I mean? Who can possibly take the idea that Mr. Abe is “stridently reviving military nationalism” as anything other than comedy? It’s so zany that it leaves you sputtering with laughter.

And how about their clever trick of supporting another “military nationalist”, former Prime Minister Koizumi, to make it appear as if they are an unbiased news organization! That’s just as much vaudeville slapstick as purposely slipping on a banana peel!

Like all good funnymen, the Times saved their boffo lines for last:

“Abe neglected essential issues like protecting the pension system in a rapidly aging society. And he further alienated voters by inviting back into power politicians Mr. Koizumi had banished as part of a campaign to root out old-style venality.”

Isn’t this is a dead giveaway that the Times is really writing a parody of an editorial? It’s almost as if it were a special issue of the National Lampoon rather than a newspaper masquerading as a satire magazine. There’s as much truth-twisting in those three sentences as you’ll see in any funhouse mirror.

You know what I mean. Mr. Koizumi completed the elimination of a useless Cabinet ministry, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. Now imagine that U.S. President George Bush had eliminated an equally useless American Cabinet department, such as the Department of Education. Imagine further that some GOP Congressmen opposed the plan because they represented districts with powerful teachers’ unions. Then, imagine Mr. Bush throwing those congressmen out of the GOP for failing to support his legislation. Finally, imagine that Mr. Bush’s successor—call him Abe Shinzer–readmitted those Congressmen to the party if they chose to return.

Now try to picture the New York Times writing the same editorial.

I don’t know about you, but I’m laughing so hard my navel is about to boil tea.

I’m sure that you now understand the New York Times is just as much comedy as Tetsuya Chikushi and News 23.

Of course, a few Americans still don’t get the joke. But most of those are also in the news media, and the rest are the soi-disant populists who live in the leftish enclaves of Manhattan, Boston, and such university towns as Berkeley and Ann Arbor.

So, think about my advice and don’t get so upset at the newspaper. Take a tip from the rest of America. They’ve known for years that the Times is a joke.