Wednesday, July 09, 2008NEWS
I guess news in Japan is sort of like news in the U.S. Depressing. I watch NHK news in English. For some reason the news mentions depressing crime stories and other wrong doings. Of course it has to do its civic duty and report on events such as earthquakes and other natural disasters. I've talked to my students from other countries such s France, Germany and Korea. It seems as if the news media there also likes to report depressing news. At least two of my students said they don't watch the news. They get their information from the Internet. I head the China and the former Yugoslavia never reported negative news. I guess they have to say everything is "wonderful" in their "paradise."
It is interesting to see what gets reported in Japan and in the U.S. I doubt if the American news media is interested in the rising price of food in Japan. Due to the rising price of corn, the price of chicken feed has gone up in Japan. Thus the price of eggs is increasing. This is due to the stupid push for using corn as fuel. Corn which could have been sold for chicken feed is now being used for ethanol. In addition American agribusiness is growing less wheat. That means the price of bread, pasta and other related wheat products is going up. The policy of using corn as fuel is turning out to be a disaster. Granted such a policy may make "environmentalists" feel good. But what do they know about the average consumers who have to struggle with rising food prices? I wonder if "environmentalist" policies and Japan has a different emphasis in sports coverage. I doubt if American TV covers Japanese baseball. The Japanese coverage of American Major League Baseball seems focused on the Japanese players in MLB. One does not a complete listing of MLB games played on NHK. Of course the broadcast, I see, only lasts about 30 minutes. And the emphasis in sports would be on Japanese athletes and sports. There was a story about the Japanese woman who won the Marathon in the 2004 Olympics in Athens. She will be competing in the Beijing Olympics. Before she competed in the Athens Olympics, she shouted out her intention to win in Greek. This time she declared her intention to win in Chinese. This seems a bit superstitious to me. I don't know if she can win this time. She is 30 years old. And I'm not sure if Beijing has the same environment as Athens. I think one Ethiopian athlete said he would not compete because of the air pollution. There is a German TV broadcast called Deutschwella in my area. I may have seen one or two broadcasts from that German TV program. Somebody informed me that Deutschwella is simply a recap of most of the U.S. news. Well, I guess maybe Deutschwella is not all that great or different from U.S. news. I wish the other foreign news programs would have the option of listening to an English version of their broadcast. There used to be a magazine which had selections of news stories from all over the world. I think the magazine may have been called WORLD PRESS. But I don't think it exists anymore. Maybe someone ought to have some sort of "news from around the world" program. Guy
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