Japan Watch: Paper of Record Gets It Wrong, Again

Japan Watch: Paper of Record Gets It Wrong, Again

A front-page story, the first in a series, proclaims that "Japan Goes From Dynamic to Disheartened." Then the deck reads: "Retrenchment Offers the West a Grim Vision of the Future."

Grim? Really? The author, Martin Fackler, has gone to Osaka to write this story and he has found some signs of belt-tightening. Couples are not staging as many lavish weddings. A small-business owner has traded in his Mercedes for a smaller domestic model. It's pretty thin gruel to make statement like these: "Few nations in recent history have seen such a striking reversal of economic fortune as Japan." Once an economic "Godzilla," it's now "little more than an afterthought in the global economy."

Having been to Japan this past summer, and traveled in different parts of the country, I agree that there are some pain points in Japan. Income gaps have opened up and the provinces are not necessarily enjoying Tokyo's wealth. But overall, Japan is a very successful society, one that acknowledges that its population SHOULD decline and that sky-high prices SHOULD decline. Western economists and commentators argue that these are signs of crisis, but the Japanese don't see it that way.

My guess is that editors in New York spoke to the local-hire Fackler and told him they wanted a series of stories about Japan's decline so that they could be positioned as relevant to the debate about America's economic crisis. If you are a local hire, with no great status in the organization, you do precisely what your editors want. Find signs of economic pain in Osaka and blow that into a front-page story.