Enough Already, Time Magazine. You’re Embarassing Yourself.

13 Responses to “Enough Already, Time Magazine. You’re Embarassing Yourself.”

1. matt on September 9th, 2007 11:04 pm

   I want to write articles for Time Magazine about countries Americans know little about. You can pretty much say anything and pass it off as the truth. Here are some ideas I just thought of:

   “Lichtenstein: world’s number 1 importer of used panties.” And all the Americans reading it will ask where Lichtenstein is before concluding that it must be somewhere around Africa.

   “Tanzania is the number one producer of fingernails used by witches worldwide”

   Yes–I could definitely be a Time writer

2. Everlasting on September 12th, 2007 6:00 am

   Can someone comment on what is so bad about this article? It describes a “resurgence” of company sponsored group activities to increase loyalty, that some younger Japanese find them interesting, but that despite this ultimately many will go with the bottom line and choose whatever is best for their personal interests.

   I briefly worked in Japan, and only occasionally endured afterwork drinking sessions. I also have professional friends in Japan who work as lawyers, accountants, engineers and so forth, and I got the impression from them that depending on the profession it differs, but that generally speaking drinking sessions were infrequent but normal, and company sponsored vacations and outings no longer existed. All in all this story seemed a bit effusive but didn’t seem strange.

   The story was written by someone who seems to be Japanese, with contributions by another Japanese person. I find that a good portion of Time’s stories are written by Japanese. Perhaps they were writing it to create a particular impression in readers. However I don’t understand the claim that in America stories about Japan are, in particular, stereotypical or “unrepresentative” of the “real” Japan. To some degree I find this to be true, but I would not say that this problem is particular to Japan. Japanese reporting on foreign countries is also often flawed (in particular when reporting on developing countries and frankly America), and the same kind of problem is found in most countries when reporting about foreign countries. In particular American foreign reports on certain countries are often worse, with media descriptions of France, China, India and Singapore coming to mind. To me reports on Japan can be flawed and a bit exaggerated, but Japan hardly suffers from the worst of it.

3. Ken Worsley on September 12th, 2007 11:12 am

   Japanese reporting on foreign countries is also often flawed

   This is about Time, not about Japanese reporting or reporting on any other nation.

4. Everlasting on September 12th, 2007 3:10 pm

   “This is about Time, not about Japanese reporting or reporting on any other nation.”

   How can any criticism of Time’s quality be understood within a vacuum? Since this is about the quality of Time’s Japan coverage, is it not directly relevant to consider how Time conducts its foreign media coverage on other countries, how similar American news agencies do so (therefore examining the reasons for the difference in quality), and what similarities or differences exist between the foreign and domestic news agencies in their reporting? I would think such questions are relevant in considering whether Time is doing such a bad job.

   But since “This is about Time,” as I originally asked, what in particular about Time’s article made it deserving of such scorn? The article itself is somewhat fluffy, hardly informative, and is forgettable. But it is not something I would raise my ire against. As I said, many such articles are written daily, and there isn’t anything about this particular article which stands out.

5. Ken Worsley on September 12th, 2007 3:15 pm

   The point made about Time stands.

6. Vimy on September 12th, 2007 5:13 pm

   I’m like Everlasting-I don’t see what bothers you about this Time article. Could you elaborate or give a link to the “very bad article from about a month back”?

7. Ken Worsley on September 12th, 2007 11:24 pm

   This is a link to the previous article: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1651222,00.html

   The points made about the article stand as is.

8. Vimy on September 13th, 2007 8:46 am

   What the hell? The two articles are identical! Do you know if they both made into print? Shame on Time. What a pile of crap.

9. JJ on September 18th, 2007 10:08 am

   I live in Japan and all of what they say is quite normal, whats the problem?, maybe for those living in a cave in the outskirts of Hokkaido might think differently, but for most city salary men I think this happens reasonably regularly.

10. Ken Worsley on September 18th, 2007 9:47 pm

    JJ, Do you mean it’s quite normal as in it’s the same as it’s ever been? Have you noticed much of a change over the past, say, 20 years?

11. John S on September 19th, 2007 6:47 am

    What an effing piece of trash. The author talks about two companies no one has ever heard about, a person who sounds like his or her friend, a consultant at a firm I’ve never heard of, and then gives second-hand anecdotes from three large corporations. This is lazy, inane, unresearched journalism at its unfortunate best.

    The worst part? There is no evidence given, no proof that what the author is so excited about is real. This is PR, straight up. A piece written to fit an agenda.

    Welcome to mainstream American journalism, where shit reigns.

12. Ken Worsley on September 22nd, 2007 11:30 am

    Thanks for taking a critical mind to it John…not only did the lack of figures, numbers or hard statistics come across as a reporter merely making things up, but the fact that the kind of spending the reporter speaks of is still in decline makes one wonder just whose agenda it was to have this piece of trash published…twice.

13. Ken Worsley on June 18th, 2008 11:13 pm

    I live in Japan and all of what they say is quite normal, whats the problem?

    Right, it’s normal. There is no such resurgence as the author is talking about.

    Update: Time has published another low class piece on Japan: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1815509,00.html

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