I see HN has imported the cynicism of the 2020 slashdot crowd. I'm sick and tired of this viewpoint.
Your false dichotomy is eyerolling - either we have total faith in all stories we read, with zero attention to detail and context, or we condemn all journalists as hacks, bad faith actors, and relics of the past: That knowledge is either meaningless, or easily compiled and comprehended in its raw format to the layman.
We need journalism. And in the new century where we will have stronger disinformation campaigns, better deepfakes, and the potential collapse of local news as we know it, "trust" in institutions and particular sources, based on their track record and credibility, will be all we have. Not everything is verifiable, and we as humans need to act on information we can't verify all the time.
So instead of going on about how all journalists suck, let's call out errors and bad work when we see it, and continue to push for better journalism and new ways of researching, citing, and reporting facts.
I didn't claim that all journalists suck. Please try not to fall prey to black and white thinking when you're accusing someone of it.
> We need journalism.
I agree.
> let's call out errors
I agree.
> and bad work when we see it
I do and am.
> and continue to push for better journalism and new ways of researching, citing, and reporting facts
I agree again. I didn't write "all journalists suck" but since you seem to think I did, how would it be mutually exclusive with needing journalism, calling out errors etc and pushing for better journalism? That would interest me.
I know why we trust journalists. Because a number of them, though imperfect, do fantastic work reporting on the events of the world. Anyway. No big deal. I tend to see this sentiment bubbling up here, and it concerns me.
Are you suggesting that this culture is somehow uniquely Japanese? Because I've yet to work at a company that didn't do to the same.
Did I write that? No, I didn't, thanks for noticing. How you managed to take that from what I wrote is for you alone to explain.
It's like critical thinking is never taught to or discovered by them.
Can you give an example? I read a lot of speculation on the internet that there was some conspiracy by the Japanese government to conceal the extent of covid infections prior to the Olympics, but have yet to see any concrete evidence.
In fact, I would give Japan pretty high marks for their handling of pandemic thus far. They rank 140 in world currently in deaths per 1M population [1] (meaning 139 countries have suffered more deaths), despite taking a fairly soft stance toward lock downs. And in my opinion the government has done a good job delivering clear and consistent messaging about the number of new infections, what actions they are taking to prevent the spread of the virus, what types of things residents should avoid doing, etc. [2]
[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
[2] NHK Covid page (in Japanese, but translates reasonably well in Chrome) https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/special/coronavirus/
Coupled with the articles earlier on in the pandemic talking about doctors being unable to give their patients COVID tests (which may have had more to do with limited supplies or the lack of treatment capability, to be fair) [1][2][3]; as well as the pretty high cost of getting a negative PCR test result here (I got a test, tested positive (minor case), and it was covered by national insurance for around $15; but my friends who tested negative after coming in contact with me, paid about $300 each for their tests) leads me to think the published numbers are probably pretty inaccurate.
I'm not really complaining as society seems to be functioning fine, but if the numbers were worse I would be.
[1] http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13188937 [2] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/05/07/national/testin... [3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-japan-...
A 5% positivity rate or lower is the WHO’s recommendation for when countries can begin to loosen restrictions [2]. Currently the rate is above 5% in Japan which is a concern. We are starting to see the government take measures to curb the spread, by suspending “Go To Travel” subsidies over New Years for example. And they have said they will do more if necessary. And fortunately growth seems to at least have leveled off a bit in recent weeks.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/positive-rate-daily-smoot...
[2] https://www.jhsph.edu/covid-19/articles/covid-19-testing-und...
> The ministry has admitted tampering with paperwork to make it tally with testimony given in parliament, and on Wednesday admitted orders were given to destroy documents for the same reason, according to a document distributed to reporters by opposition lawmaker Osaka.
And it's not as if I would believe the figures anyway, from [3]:
> According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, there were some 3,700 “unaccompanied deaths” in Japan in 2013. However, other experts estimate the number is nearer 30,000 a year.
Why is there such a disparity between the figures academics are claiming which would embarass the government and those that the government are claiming? How are we supposed to measure the impact of COVID-19 with such low testing and no idea what the expected death tally to have been?
It's not as if things like that are isolated cases of government numbers going awry. I ask myself, would the Japan government go ahead with something even if it endangered large numbers of people but brought money or prestige? The answer appears to be yes[4].
> They based their claim on a 2002 report in which government experts estimated there was a one in five chance of a magnitude-8 earthquake occurring and triggering a powerful tsunami within the next 30 years.
> At the time of the disaster, Japan’s nuclear regulator was severely criticised for its collusive ties with the nuclear industry, resulting in the formation of a new watchdog that has imposed stricter criteria for the restart of nuclear reactors that were shut down in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.
So, in the face of all that (and more) I'm of the opinion that they were doing their best not to scupper the Olympics. I'm willing to be proven wrong but I'm not going to wait for absolute proof to fall in my lap, I'm not sentencing anyone to prison.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22728674
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-23/japan-min...
[3] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/06/kodokushi-in-agi...
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/17/japanese-gover...
Edit: missed off a reference number.
Your last three citations have nothing to do with covid. They are about a real-estate scandal involving Prime Minister Abe, an article from 2015 about people dying alone, and an article from 2017 about the Fukushima nuclear disaster. There is nothing remotely convincing here to back up your assertions that the government is hiding something.
Furthermore, if there were more people dying from covid than official records suggest, you would see it show up as excess mortality. But Japan has seen very little excess mortality in 2020. [1]
[1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.09.20143164v...
They wouldn't. The subject of my comment is the government's competence and trustworthiness with respect to COVID-19.
> Furthermore, if there were more people dying from covid than official records suggest, you would see it show up as excess mortality. But Japan has seen very little excess mortality in 2020
Strange, because one of my “last 3 citations that have nothing to do with covid” addresses that point.
Number 3.
> How are we supposed to measure the impact of COVID-19 with such low testing and no idea what the expected death tally to have been?
Now to the part you definitely read:
> Your first citation complains about incompetence in the presentation of data, but does not suggest any sort of attempt at a coverup.
That incompetence is part of a pattern of behaviour (which was the point of those "nothing to do with covid" citations) that, if I were a cynical man, would almost appear designed to make it difficult to hold the government to account, of which there is also a pattern of behaviour[1]:
> Not in dispute is Abe’s aggressive campaign against press freedom.
> Japan plunged from 22nd to 66th in the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index over the course of [Abe's] second premiership
This in particular may account for the lack of a smoking gun:
> The 2014 Protection of Specially Designated Secrets Act weakened freedom of information rights and criminalized whistleblowing. Government bureaucrats could face up to 10 years imprisonment for leaking state secrets, while journalists who published such secrets could face five years in jail.
The article is a long and damning indictment of the way Abe's government (and Suga is included too) has restricted press freedom.
So we have a government that is:
- ostensibly incompetent in the way it supplies data and information - aggressively and illegally restricts information leaks - openly bullies the media into silence - has ignored huge dangers to the public before, in pursuit of money or prestige
But you say we should ignore all of this because it's got "nothing to do with covid"? No, I'm not going to do that as I share the mayor of Futuba's[2] impression, "I strongly mistrust the government".
As I wrote previously, I'm not sending anyone to prison so I don't need to meet a ridiculous standard of proof. If Abe and his minions were on trial then I would, and they probably should be for several things if not this.
[1] https://thediplomat.com/2020/10/after-abe-will-press-freedom...
What the alternative? To get our information from places like informationclearinghouse?
To push for greater freedom of speech, and hence privacy protections, while also pushing for greater transparency from powerful entities would be my political recipe for helping the general state of things.
As to the larger picture though, I'm not sure why anyone trusts journalists nowadays. In an age of greater access to information their previous stranglehold on "the truth" has repeatedly been shown to be a sham and trusting factcheckers seems to be repeating exactly the same mistake over again but with added naïveté - "Oh, they're factcheckers, that must be true! Giving them that title immediately renders these humans incapable of bias…". The article even wants us to continue to swallow the blatant lie that some reasonably large proportion of stories go through a "rigorous fact-checking process" and even then couldn't withstand lies from sources. Please, you may as well tell me Santa is really going to drop off my presents this year, which would nice given the chaos at ports (thanks again, COVID-19 and lies about contagion).
The "age of big data" and democratised access to data and communication (something that governments and media companies, old and new, have been seeking to reverse) has inadvertently created an "age of epistemology" for which most seem unprepared, journalists being among the least prepared.
I have precisely zero sympathy.