Latest 15 of 23 Total Comments Show All

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  movieguy at 09:43 PM JST - 20th July

  If they in fact translated the articles without permission of the rags that originally published the stories then the Mainichi did violate copyright laws, but this whole business about "debauching" Japan is ridiculous. The stories were originally written from a Japanese perspective.

  Supuncho, I see your point, but in my 14 years in Japan the English version of the Mainichi has always read as a tabloid rag. In English it NEVER came across as a legit NEWS paper. Considering that I never took their stories to truly represent Japan, but as a very small percentage of what some weirdos in Japan were doing. This whole business about not wanting to show Japan in a bad light is a joke. Beginning August 1st they plan to sanitize the news to make Japan look as though it's nirvana.

  Every country has weird things happening and to make this into some kind of scandal after the stories had been published for so many years is such a waste of time.

  I deleted the Mainichi bookmark the moment they dropped Waiwai.

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  Honne at 10:28 PM JST - 20th July

  wouldn't mind if Waiwai started up as its own raunchy website. I for one would visit it for the pure entertainment.

  The Japanese Smut Portal at Tokyo Reporter is carrying on what Waiwai was doing and translating the same tabloids.

  http://www.tokyoreporter.com/category/japanese-smut-portal/

  And I believe another site called Stimpy has archives of old Waiwai articles.

  The more they make a mountain out of what originally was a molehill, the more sites like this will pop up just for the sake of trolling the 2ch xenophobes that have been pushing this issue. I even posted on one of the complaining blogs that if it was this "debauchery" they were concerned about, they should look at where the material was coming from. Unsurprisingly, that fell on deaf ears as the problem seems to be more about it being translated to another language (something to the effect that it is ok for we Japanese....)

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  isthistheend at 10:30 PM JST - 20th July

  I think ALL the English newspapers are getting worse and worse, if that's possible. The latest format of the Japan Times for example is just vexing to me, or maybe its to save space (ie budget considerations). But we do need more writing by the readers (like these blogs), and my suggestion is to have the blog, and then the blogs "unplugged", as in "unedited" except fot the obvious misuse of four letter or racially slang words. For me (and I wonder for how many others) its reading the blogging ideas of my comrades that is the best part of each "story". Where we get the real story, if you will.

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  jeancolmar at 10:32 PM JST - 20th July

  Actually now, the Mainichi is kind of dead. They are in the process of reorganization. Go to their website and read their disingenuous and hypocritical barf of contrition.

  Hey, Wai Wai was around since 1989. It was a popular for 19 years. That is just 6 years shy of a quarter of a century. It continued into cyberspace when many regular features and writers were dropped. Now, all of a sudden, it seems as if the Mainichi higher-ups woke up to the realization that the stuff they were publishing was often unreliable and always salacious. Then they proceeded to punish a few staff members who happened to be assigned to Wai Wai.

  What was the problem? Was it that the stuff from the weeklies was salacious and often inaccurate or was it that someone with a lot power told the Mainichi that foreigners were getting the "wrong" (hmmmm?) impression of Japan? It had to be someone big for the Mainichi to cave in the way it did. I cannot believe that there were no objections to Wai Wai in the course of its 19 years of existence.

  Wai Wai was always salacious. Much of what it reported was rubbish, and yet sometimes it was dead accurate in reporting on the soiled nappy and bra off side of life that the mainstream press was too squeamish to report accurately. Remember the hips beauty contest report here? Wai wai called hips by the correct word--bottom--and supplied plenty of bottom photos to prove it. Wai Wai told us that the winner had burned her bottom before the contest and vowed to take care of it in the future. Important news? No. But the mainstream press reported it. To its shame it didn't call a bottom a bottom.

  Whenever Wai Wai became anecdotal I knew I was reading baloney. There was one article that pretty much said that female bus tour guides were promiscuous that I found particularly offensive. The article also claimed that a large number of prostitutes were bus tour conductors before they turned to prostitution--information that was based on interviews with an unspecified number of prostitutes, not on any reliable scientific data.

  I agree that a legitimate newspaper should not print this sort of stuff--disregarding for the moment that the mainstream press suppresses or downplays much information that a country's rulers don't want spread around--and for 19 years the Mainichi did just that. It did just that knowing full well what they were doing. They would still be doing it if suddenly someone--I wish I knew who it was--did not put the gun to their heads (so to speak).

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  presto345 at 10:39 PM JST - 20th July

  Somebody a few days ago left a plastic bag with flyers pasted to my fence decrying the unforgivable things the Mainichi did: publishing vulgar and untruthful stories about Japanese society. Countries with a free press have their tabloids. Do we believe everything that's written there? Of course not. I wasn't a regular reader of wai-wai, but I found the articles a refreshing change from the stilted English language publications.

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  taikan at 11:58 PM JST - 20th July

  Mainichi Shimbun should bring back WaiWai when the New York Times starts putting articles from the National Enquirer on its website.

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  medievaltimes at 12:45 AM JST - 21st July

  Japan cares too much about what others think of them.

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  motytrah at 01:01 AM JST - 21st July

  The problem with most of the English language J-Papers is they are very dry and boring to read. The only reason Japan Today works is because of the discussion content.

  I personally think the issue at hand for MDN is the fact that they heavily depend on domestic advertising, and can easily be forced to bow to pressure by various groups. Sites like JT appear to be funded by a much more diverse stream of advertisers.

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  Molenir at 02:57 AM JST - 21st July

  Like others, I pretty much quit going to MDN after they got rid of Wai Wai. Although it was just tabloid type journalism, it was occasionally interesting, and sometimes reported on problems that almost never get reported normally. Myself, I was disappointed to see them cave on this issue.

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  thepro at 06:19 AM JST - 21st July

  What a spineless newspaper. Giving in to a bunch of 2ch nerdlingers.

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  warispeace at 09:26 AM JST - 21st July

  Those in favour of this new shift to "legitimate" news miss the point. What is reported in the the weeklies IS news, just not sanitized for global consumption. Of course MDN has a responsibility to check the credibility of its source, but that goes for any story, including those that come from anonymous government and industry sources.

  Now MDN will go the way of all the other news media and just use stories from the wire services. More bland homogenization.

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  timorborder at 10:37 AM JST - 21st July

  Can you say "censorship?"

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  imagawa at 08:54 PM JST - 21st July

  When all said & done the internet “news” sites are really to be read more for entertainment rather than to find out what is truly happening in the world. And those that allowed comments used to be incredibly good fun because we were able to be part & to some extent the major part of the entertainment. But today the level of sanitation of these sites as reduced them to old women gossiping. I’ve not visited mainichi for some time, but the “waiwai” was always an interesting side to it, but never to be taken seriously, true or not. From outside the country I click into Jtoday, because I’m lazy, it used to be so much better, it too has “cleaned up” its act to the point that it’s tedious & insanely over regulated. Maybe this is the way things are going to be. If so the real losers are going to be the un-visited web sites because there is always going to be some place else to go no matter how short lived they might be.

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  usaexpat at 11:39 PM JST - 21st July

  Mainichi I have no reason to read your crappy publication except for the good laugh that was "Wai Wai". No need for a new start because you canned the one interesting feature you had.

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  frontandcentre at 11:14 AM JST - 22nd July

  supuncho and taikan, I think that your assessments aren't fair. You're obviously not aware of the numerous other credible news sites on the web that report scandalous and / or salacious news items, even if their print edition is relatively conservative in its content.

  I think the point here is that Mainichi bowed to supposed "reader" pressure on the basis that the translated stories cast Japan in a bad light, not that what was being said was factually inaccurate. The complaint was essentially that a leading Japanese media organisation shouldn't be bringing focus onto such stories, even if they were true - or anecdotal, as was often made clear. It's fair enough for them to choose to pull the column on business grounds, but to turn around and blame their own staff for the management's own lack of oversight is simply unfair. I believe that the Mainichi's editors were doing exactly what was asked of them.

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