Thursday, June 14, 2007

David vs Debito and the articles about Japan

David McNeill and Debito Arudou are both outspoken critics of Japanese society.

Criticising Japanese society will enrich Japanese society. I welcome them.

In my impression David McNeill is a leftist liberal. There are many points I disagree with him. I But I love an different perspective. And he is trying to be fair

Debito arudou is a self-proclaimed human activist. In a society like Japan where there is little chance for the minority to voice their sentiment, opinion, he is playing an important role. (But sometimes I feel, from the way he writes, he is a preacher who just want publicity)

(In this regard, overthinker
and Anpontan also deserve attention. Their writings are by far interesting and intellectual with their sufficient knowledge of Japan and different cultural background. )

There is nothing wrong depicting the dark side of Japan. Japanese newspaper like Asahi is always doing that. And there are variety of opinions among Japanese. In case of Japanese media, there are always people who will check and criticize the articles.
The battles between Asahi and Sankei are fun.

Journalists abroad often write articles about Japan quite irresponsibly. See buyo
In case of English articles, there is little chance to rebuttal, Besides, in English articles, there are cases where it is not just difference of opinions but journalists lack the minimum amounts of knowledge of Japan and too lazy to check the fact and often write the article with prejudice.
This might hold for Japanese journalism about abroad.

To demand complete fairness to journalist might be too much, or it might be impossible in the first place but let's culture the eye to read the article critically.

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