For many years, the Mainichi Daily News, the English website of Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun, was the place to go if you wanted to read salacious articles about the sexual habits of the Japanese. The stories, which were featured in the site’s “WaiWai” column, frequently stretched believability. Here’s a list of stories published on its site, as collected by the blog, The Truth From Japan (some links/headlines are from external sites that picked up on the Mainichi stories):
- “More moms going down, to ensure grades go up!”
- Japanese housewives do prostitution in the coin shower in suburbs.
- The nurse in Japan is lewder than the prostitute.
- 55% of the women in Japan sleep with men on the day at the first time of meet.
- Japanese teens are screwing like rabbits on viagra.
- The latest Japanese fad: hiring 70-year-old prostitutes.
- Also pre-teen prostitutes are still finding work in Japan.
- Japanese high school girls no-panty, just for kicks.
- Fast food sends schoolgirls into sexual feeding frenzy.
- There is a bestiality restaurant in Tokyo.
After what appears to be a thorough internal investigation, the paper yesterday issued an apology and announced that the website would “start over again.” (Credit to Fark for spotting the apology.)
This means the company has taken “punitive measures” against managers and staff responsible for the content and will, in effect, relaunch the website with a new focus and commitment to accuracy. From the paper’s apology:
…We continued to post articles that contained incorrect information about Japan and indecent sexual content. These articles, many of which were not checked, should not have been dispatched to Japan or the world. We apologize deeply for causing many people trouble and for betraying the public’s trust in the Mainichi Shimbun.
The Mainichi Newspapers took punitive measures on July 20 against Managing Director Yoshiyuki Watanabe, who previously served as general manager of the Multimedia Division, and another senior official, to hold them responsible as supervisors, in addition to those who were earlier punished.
We will take the following measures to prevent a recurrence of the problems pointed out to us through the criticism and opinions received from many readers, through our in-house investigation, and as indicated by the Open Newspaper Committee of experts:
On Aug. 1, we will reorganize the MDN Editorial Department, and on Sept. 1, under a new chief editor, the MDN will be transformed into a more news-oriented site. We will translate Mainichi Shimbun editorials and commentaries by prominent figures, such as “Jidai-no-Kaze” (Sign of the Times), and post them on the site in an effort to deepen the understanding of Japan among readers overseas.
At the same time, we will set up an advisory group to the MDN comprised of Megumi Nishikawa, an expert senior writer, and other staff writers specializing in international news coverage. The group will check the MDN’s editorial plans and the content of articles in the MDN.
We are determined to try our utmost to regain the public trust that we have lost as a result of this incident and rehabilitate the English site into one that can dispatch information about Japan to the world in an appropriate manner.
A second apology, also published yesterday and viewable below the first, offers additional details about how the paper will change the way it produces and checks articles. One priority is to “appoint a female employee as the new chief editor, based on our realization that the lack of a woman’s point of view, in addition to the lack of a checking system, helped to create a situation in which inappropriate articles continued to be published in the column.”
At the bottom of the page containing the apologies is a series of links to material from the paper’s investigation. It rivals the New York Times’ report on Jayson Blair as one of the most detailed and revelatory internal investigations of journalistic malfeasance. For example, you can read the findings of its internal investigative team, which lists “Defects in the checking system,” the “Absence of an editorial quality control system,” and “Deficiency in journalistic morals” as a few of the factors that contributed to the site’s failures.
There’s also a “Chronology of problems” and links to comments from the members of the paper’s Open Newspaper Committee (1, 2, 3, 4).
This could very well be the first time that a modern news organization has decided to “start over” due to irresponsible reporting.
Some additional reading:
