As I cannot decide on my own, I am conducting an informal poll. Which of these two articles is worse?
Remember to award bonus points for non-sequiturs, unfounded assumptions and misleading assertions.
A guide to Japan’s general election
5 weeks ago
5 comments:
I say B. A has a few weird things but otherwise harmless (or no more harmful than usual for Western media).
The New York Times piece seems mostly fairly level-headed, apart from the odd way to lead in; Since Kan is about 100% certain not to be in office by mid-September it would look rather strange to keep planning for a trip with him as PM, wouldn't it?
The Yomiuri Shimbun piece on the other hand doesn't seem to have anything but accidental contact with reality. Not sure what they expect Kan - or any PM - to actually do about the currency.
Either their political reporters are so clueless about basic economy that they believe the government can magically order a particular rate; or they're cynical enough to use that illusory power as a club to beat up a politician they don't want in office. Not sure which is worse.
I vote A. B is, despite being poorly written (obviously non-native english speaker, partly machine translation), reasonably informative and accurate. Unfortunately.
If A consisted of only the first and last 2 paragraphs, it would be acceptable.
What I was going to say has been said almost entirely by Janne. I would just add that the Yomiuri reporters, rather than being clueless, do this kind of thing all the time to non-LDP leaders. As long as Kan has been in office, they have seemed to take perverse delight in every perceived chance to bring him down.
Sounds like you're all well versed in this issue... But could someone explain the problem maybe super briefly? Is it just the problem that both articles don't challenge the idea that a PM could affect the exchange rate?
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