TIME Did It Again, This Time on the LDP Election

"Abe's failure to address [many important issues, including the handling of over 50 million lost pension records, rural economic stagnation and tax reforms] cost his party control of Japan's upper house, and yet like their fallen predecessor, both Fukuda and Aso preferred to highlight their foreign policy differences — Fukuda called for open talks with Japan's neighbors, while the hawkish Aso took a conservative stance on the Yasukuni war shrine, a sore point in Asian relations. Both favored postponing a general election until next spring; both have also inherited Abe's insistence on continuing Japan's support of coalition forces in Afghanistan through its refueling operations in the Indian Ocean.
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[W]ith Fukuda still unclear on how he intends to solve Japan's domestic economic issues, the LDP has until next spring's general elections to prove it can answer to the country's needs."
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- TIME, 23 September 2007/09/27

I had started writing a post about how bad the article was, ran out of time, and left it in my draft file. Somehow, news on the Fukuda administration's poll numbers reminded me of it, so I dug it out. It would be a waste of time; it would be too long. So above you see what I think is the most egregious stretch of bad journalism.

If the correspondent had bothered to read the policy manifests of the two candidates, she would have known that that ["preferred to highlight their foreign policy differences note: later added for clarity while excising repeated sentence in the excerpt"] was the farthest thing from the truth. Then why did it appear as if they were talking about those subjects? Because those were the things the media chose to ask the candidates and highlight. Blame your Japanese colleagues. It's like Al Gore inventing the Internet.


As a matter of fact, in Mr. Aso's case, this point in the article has more than an echo of Al Gore's misfortune. If the correspondent had bothered to read this and this, she would have known that Mr. Aso has a very different view of what we should do about Yasukuni from, say Shoichi Nakagawa, and is, among other things, quite open to the idea of taking out the Class A War Criminals.

In passing, I'll mention that the general election is scheduled for September 2009. It's actually quite significant, at least to me, because Mr. Fukuda has never said that he will call an election in spring. He's been coy, if you listen to him carefully. I think that it will be later, and in any case when he thinks it's the right time to go to the public.

As you can see, there was nothing really wrong with the ending (except the writer's presumption that Mr. Fukuda must call an election in spring). But you don't need a whole error-filled article to say it.

As you can see, there was nothing really wrong with the ending (except the writer's presumption that Mr. Fukuda must call an election in spring). But you don't need a whole error-filled article to say it.