> Earl: Thank you for at least citing a study in
defending your
> viewpoint. My chief point and complaint in this
stream is the sweeping
> generalizations about the U.S. without any study,
data, distinction
> about what percentage of Americans hold those
characteristics, or
> qualifications. For some reason it seems ok to do
this about the U.S.
> but if some of those same type of sweeping
generalizations were
> applied to Japan we'd be appalled! If we are holding
people in this
> forum to the same social scientific standards we
should have in our
> published work, then seems to me such data, subtle
distinctions, and
> qualifications are necessary; if this is just an
opinion blog in which
> we can vent all our personal opinions (yes, and
> prejudices) fine, but don't try to cloak them in the
authority of
> social scientists.

My statement should have been phrased "journalists writing for the most prominent newspapers in the United States appear to be among the last true believers in the wartime slogan One Hundred Million Hearts Beating As one."
>
> I happen to think a lot of what your study says about
the US media is
> probably true (although I'd have to see the
methodology of the study
> to know about how valid it is). My own personal
reactions when I read
> a lot of the
It was a UC-Berkeley masters essay as I recall. You can probably get it on loan through the UC system.
> articles about Japan in the NY Times, for e.g., is
the
> same: always the cultural explanation for everything.
> Drives me crazy. But whether this is a distinctly
American media
> trait or a more universal one of journalism to deal
in stereotypes,
> cultural platitudes, and catering to popular
prejudices remains to be
> seen.
> Similar systematic studies of other media would have
to be done. My
> outdated knowledge of some studies done elsewhere is
that other media
> have some of the same (or different equally
egregious) tendencies,
> although there may be some exceptions such as
specialty business
> papers like the FT (which actually has more coverage
of
With the exception of the FT which itself has gone down in quality in recent years, coverage of Japan in the British press is almost entirely unmitigated rubbish.
I have had several heated exchanges with The Guardian correspondent about the bollocks he has written about Japan.
The Daily Mail and The Telegraph are even worse. The Independent has largely given up on Japan, but at one point it had an extended series about that trivialized and ridiculed just about everything in Japan.

The Guardian is a particularly interesting case. One does not look to The Daily Mail or The Telegraph for real news. The Guardian is, however, about as up market, serious, and politically correct as you can get in Britain. Nonetheless, its coverage of Japan is about as ethnocentric and prejudiced as you can get without qualifying for the label "racist."

While the British tabloid press tends be even handed in its denigration of anything that is not British (or more correctly English), the so-called quality papers, especially The Guardian have, in my view, one set of standards for European countries, the US, and China, and another set of standards for Japan. For comparison with the coverage of Japan, I try to track, albeit casually, articles on Italy. I find reporting on Italy far more matter of fact than that for Japan. The latter far more often contains negative value judgments and statements that give the impression that what is being reported is a pathology peculiar to Japan with explanations peculiar to Japanese society and culture.
Demographic change is one area where this difference really stands out. Japan and Italy have quite similar birth rates and rapidly aging populations, but articles on the Japanese case are wildly different from those on the Italian case. (So to for Germany in this context.)

I would, however, note that the fact British press coverage of Japan is largely rubbish does not make American coverage into gold.

> Japan than any US paper). I would also bet if you
read the LA TImes
> and the San Jose Mercury that have a fair amount of
coverage of Japan,
> i.e. West coast newspapers where the audience's
knowledge of Japan and
> Japanese may be more extensive, you might not find as
much of what
> that study found.
I have a Google alert that gives me notice of articles on Japan in both papers. The San Jose Mercury News carries relatively little about Japan. Some of the worst examples I have for my "Japan In The Foreign Imagination" course have come from The LA Times.

EHK