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<H1 style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 6pt"><U><FONT size=5>Media coverage of the quake and
tsunami in Japan</FONT></U></H1>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>Dear KineJapaners,</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">I was also glad to have the silence on this
list broken and to hear from friends.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>I sincerely hope that those I have not yet heard from are safe and do not
have friends or relatives afflicted by these tragedies.<?xml:namespace prefix =
o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>There have been direct and
indirect references to media coverage of the disaster on the threads
‘Fundraising Screening of CALF …’ and ‘the eerie silence on KineJapan …’ [which
we have well-and-truly broken!].<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>But I would like to hear of members’ takes on the coverage when they are
ready.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>My own contribution is a
little long, so feel free to file or delete.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal> </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>When I turned on this Saturday
morning, here in the UK, <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>just
before 8am (in fact, to set my radio timer), there was a studio interview
started, on BBC News 24, in a ‘Newswatch’ slot, of Kevin Blackhurst., who I see
is Controller of the channel.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>I should straightway give some
credit that the interview took place, even though, to me, Blackhurst this week
has seemed like pornographer-in-chief.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>The interviewer (didn’t get a name) was relaying viewers’ complaints that
the BBC and other channels had unnecessarily despatched and fronted star
reporters, when some pooling with other channels, namely ITN news, would have
been more appropriate, and that the reporting had been too excitable.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Blackhurst posited that his people were
reporting, not presenting, a proposition with which I absolutely disagree.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He also answered in a way that the
‘that’ he purported to be answering was the presentation of the nuclear
situation, not the actual disaster that has actually already happened.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>To my mind, that was a full admission of
guilt.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>The other topic of viewers’ – no,
the audience’s – complaints that I heard was not being able to hear the
headlines over the jingles. In this brief discussion<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>‘hear’ and ‘understand’ were used
interchangeably – an equivalence that is fundamentally misconceived for
reporting from a non-english-speaking country.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This, to me, was the subject that should
have been discussed and wasn’t.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>The jingles for 8am then came on
– somewhat muted, I thought - and the Libyan situation was covered.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>When we got to <?xml:namespace prefix =
st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:country-region
w:st="on">Japan</st1:country-region>, a named reporter was interviewed with a
<st1:City w:st="on">Tokyo</st1:City> backdrop and presented <U>only</U> the
situation concerning the nuclear plants at <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Fukushima</st1:place></st1:City>.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We were told that the <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Fukushima</st1:place></st1:City> fifty were
getting massive amounts of radiation. “Massive” was a naked epithet, given fully
pornographic emphasis. [ I have read, <U>read</U> in the Guardian, I think, that
that the team had been both considerably reinforced and rotated – any
clarification gratefully received.] He did say that radiation in <st1:City
w:st="on">Tokyo</st1:City> was negligible but that was it – nothing else in
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Japan</st1:place></st1:country-region> was newsworthy – onto the next
story, this one’s dying.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>To my mind, it’s the editing
that’s at fault.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The stars perform
as directed.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Nothing gets
corrected.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The nearest to a
correction is that ‘large/massive earthquake in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Tokyo</st1:place></st1:City>’ on Radio4 gets superseded by maps.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But we were told, for example, that
several trains were missing, including a shinkansen with 400 people and we get
shown pictures of mangled local trains.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>I’m told that the Japanese media have reported that all trains were
evacuated, but desensationalizing isn’t newsworthy.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>I had sworn, after the
Twin-towers attack, and its toll of time and depression, never again to inflict
upon myself those weeks of woefully edited news.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It should not, in 2001, have taken weeks
for the purported death toll to come down below 100,000 and for us to understand
that just about everyone below the impacts had got out.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Numbers, thankfully, seem to one thing
our transported stars seem to be able to pick up, so the casualties, although of
an appalling magnitude, are already being reported more responsibly than in
2001. [But they have to be served up in western numerals for them; ‘daiichi’ is
conveyed as a place name.]<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Alas,
that responsibility seems to be confined to that one ‘island’ where they are
following the Japanese media.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>The complaint I hear here is of
the sheer imposition and insensitivity of imposing our stars upon the
hospitality of desperate people in need - and there are, after all, hundreds of
national audiences to be entertained by different teams.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I accept that conveying the tragedy and
getting a sense that <U>some</U> survived is important news reporting and is
best done by interview.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But if the
interviewees need to be translated, what is gained by having an english-speaking
interviewer? – given that so much understanding and initiative has to be lost in
the process?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>More importantly, in
terms of ethnic prejudice, why is a victim report only true if mediated through
an english-speaking star?</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>Lack of language skills in the
newsroom is deplorable but actually surmountable in this media age, with a
little humility.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Since many clips
are endlessly repeated in ‘breaking news’, a posting on-line would rapidly
elicit a translation (which should, for safety’s sake, be attributed).<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>If newsrooms want to<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>prefer voice-overs to subtitles they
will doubtless pursue that.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Even
without necessity, there is some acceptance of small-screen subtitles
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/mar/04/the-killing-bbc-danish-crime-thriller/print)
but, in any case, there is no excuse for ducking both formats and bluffing it
out without star-led descriptions of pictures already seen.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>By that stage, we have descended to
something that should fairly be called pornography</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>Postscript: clearly, I did not
keep my media-self-denying vow, to my bitter regret.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s harder, of course, with everyone
phoning to ask after my daughter, sensationalised by coverage by more unbridled
pornography elsewhere. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>[Mrs
Kamahara is fine in Tokyo, a bit demoralised like others, about the ex-pats
leaving, but happy that her sister-in-law with a baby to feed has gone down to
the family in Nara. And she’s found toilet-paper.]</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>If you got this far, thanks for
reading it.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt"
class=MsoNormal>Roger</P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>