Comment by Ken Worsley

April 20, 2007 @ 4:53 pm

There are many reasons he may have done it, but his having been Korean is not one of them

Thank you. I was repulsed by what I saw on TV in Japan. Not only with the continual implication that his nationality was somehow a factor in the crime, but with the idiotic comments made by the news announcers on “American culture,” which they revealed a profound lack of knowledge about.

That said, there were some announcers who stressed how long he had lived in the US, though that took back seat to where he came to the US from.

I chalk the mistranslations up to incompetence, and not anything malicious. The words “English major” mean two very different things in the US and Japan, and I doubt anyone at the TV station is familiar enough with the US university system to know the difference. I don’t think this is nearly as bad as the Fox News Network continually showing “Mark Foley (D)” on their screens last year. That was clearly intended to mislead, and never apologized for.

Comment by Vimy

April 20, 2007 @ 5:22 pm

This could have been a good editorial, but comes off as an uninformed rant. You criticize “the media” like it’s some monolithic monster yet give no details as to where you got your information from. What TV channel(s) and program(s) were you were watching? It would have been better to latch on to one news program or station than to smear an entire industry without presenting any evidence.

If this was NHK, then I’d say you have a valid point. But I get the feeling you were watching a wide show in which case, you should take their broadcasting with a grain of salt.

Your repetition of “A Korean guy went to America and shot people” is bothersome because I have yet to see or read anything with the sinister connotation you claim there to be. If you read Japan’s dailies, Cho Seung-Hui’s nationality isn’t an issue. Some papers bring up his nationality, but there’s no hint of malice in the reporting. They are simply reporting a fact. If you read the Asahi Shimbun in Japanese, they never call him a Korean.

Unless you clarify what programs you were watching, you’re just ranting.

Comment by ken

April 20, 2007 @ 6:52 pm

If you read the Asahi Shimbun in Japanese, they never call him a Korean.

Just looking quickly around the house, I’ve seen two articles in the Japanese language Asahi Shimbun from the past few days that mention he’s Korean.

Comment by DeOrio

April 20, 2007 @ 7:05 pm

Well, Vimy, you’ll notice I didn’t talk about the press at all. However, in today’s Japanese Asahi and on the 18th, the Asahi repeatedly referred to Cho as Korean, from Korea, born in Korea. Take a minute and check.

As for TV stations, take your pick - I watched a number of different channels, including NHK as well as less serious news channels. Did you see any whose banner did not specify that a Korean did it? Some of the banners, even graphics pointed out that Cho was Korean without pointing out where the incident took place.

I’m not saying that TV news organizations are trying to tar and feather Koreans. What makes it worrying is that they probably don’t realize what they’re doing. When large news organizations, such as NHK, Asahi, Fuji, and others repeat mistranslations, such as “English language student,” it’s worth at least wondering why. They have the resources and the ability to correct such a mistake quickly.

My repetition of “A Korean guy went to America and shot people” was an intentional mimicry of the gist of the TV coverage at the time of the event and shortly thereafter. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration, either.

The point is that the idea of Koreans, in this case, as criminals is so pervasive that TV outlets, even respectable ones, make it an issue without thinking about it. What worries me is that it’s almost taken for granted.

I intentionally refrained from pointing out specific reporters or news programs because that’s what people would latch onto, when that’s not really the point.

You’re more than welcome to disagree with me, Vimy; in fact, I encourage it. However, to say that an editorial is an uninformed rant because it doesn’t mention specifics implies that I am lying in the form of having made things up. Is that the case? If so, why not call me on it?

Don’t pick bones with me by claiming that the Japanese press are not referring to Cho as a Korean, either. That’s demonstrably not the case.

Comment by Vimy

April 20, 2007 @ 8:38 pm

Your points are well taken and made me do some double-checking. I stand corrected. The media (which I take to include newspapers and not just TV) has been calling Cho Seung-Hui a Korean. This probably stems from the police briefing where they referred to him as a resident alien.

My point wasn’t to call you a liar, but to ask you for some specific evidence to back up your claims. A link to a YouTube clip or something similar would have strengthened your argument.

You are assuming your audience has watched the same TV as you. It’s difficult to take your arguments at face value if you don’t tell readers and listeners what you watched and when you watched it. I don’t understand how mentioning a specific program or personality makes people “latch onto” it or weakens your argument. If a news program is repeatedly getting the facts wrong, that’s noteworthy and they should be called on it. You’re painting coverage of the massacre with a very wide brush. I would argue that being specific makes your argument stronger.

Comment by moji

April 20, 2007 @ 10:44 pm

DeOrio,
You describe well the reactions of some anti-Korean 2channelers. But you go too far, by demonizing all the japanese media and all the japanese. I oppose to this kind of malicious generalisations. The image of gun-society of USA is not peculiar to Japan, but to the rest of the world.

Comment by theanphibian

April 21, 2007 @ 12:15 am

I have already been hearing condemning of the Japanese media for their treatment of the incident, so I am very happy to hear the TPR take on what’s going on.

I’m at a university that’s not more than 300 miles away from VT and has many of the same characteristics. The shooting certainly hits home here.

I differ on some of your points in this broadcast. I don’t believe that he was discriminated against on the basis of being Korean. He was a victim of stereotypes, but not discrimination. The tapes he sent in himself make it clear that the incident was not racially motivated.

As for connections, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the fact that he immigrated here has everything to do with his mental state up to the shootings. I’ve known a number of people who came with their parents to the U.S. in the early to mid years of grade school, many of them Japanese, and it affects people, it can cause serious damage that will last the rest of someone’s life. I don’t know the details of Cho’s circumstances but it’s clear that his family wasn’t extremely well off either. I imagine he had a very traumatic situation that was specific to neither people coming from S. Korea or people coming to the U.S..

Engineering schools in the States have a lot of Asians. That is the group Americans associate him with. No one can tell the difference between Koreans and Japanese, nor do they really care. On top of that, we’ve already been through this with Middle Easterners, where an attack lead to backlash against a particular group. It won’t happen here, the motivation was not unique and there are too many Asian Americans to treat them differently.

–
The media treatment of the event has been disgusting in my opinion. I had been fairly unhappy with the treatment of the incident (epically the videos) by the major American news outlets, but questionable translations and skewing of the truth by Japanese sources is unbelievable.

The fact that anyone sees this as an international incident enrages me. Cho was an American, a Korean American. I have friends who have been here for a shorter time and have less legal status that I consider to be American without a second thought.

In a simple youtube search I could only find one Japanese news story about this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mZQ5s3cqNE&mode=related&search=

Which seems simply factual, though it was surprising to see an anchor on the VT campus. But I know that the environment must be unmistakable for those actually in Japan.

Comment by ken

April 21, 2007 @ 12:50 am

Theanphibian, thanks for your comment. Try here:
http://youtube.com/results?search_type=search_videos&search_query=%E3%83%90%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B8%E3%83%8B%E3%82%A2&search_sort=video_date_uploaded&search_category=0

There’s quite a bit on You Tube in Japanese. Searches for バージニア、バージニア工科大 and the like will bring it up. You’ll find some appalling things said by the posters.

Comment by Turner

April 21, 2007 @ 1:04 am

Even considering the massive fatalities in this one incident, I feel almost numb to these kinds of acts lately. I just watched an interview with Ali A. Allawi, the former Iraq Minister of Defense. The interviewer used the VT shooting as an example - we mourn and deal with such events, but they happen on an almost daily basis in other parts of the world.

Comment by DeOrio

April 21, 2007 @ 1:21 am

Theanphibian, I agree that he probably was not discriminated against. What I meant was that, if he was, that would be a point on which his being Korean would be germane. As it stands, I see absolutely no reason the Cho’s citizenship need be mentioned every time the story is updated.

Moji, I think you’re reading a lot into the editorial that isn’t there. Try reading or listening again. Care to point out where you see demonizing of media in general? Demonizing of all the Japanese? That’s not even in the realm of reasonable misunderstanding.

I talked very specifically about what was actually on mainstream television news programs as the incident was being reported.

I’m going to make this abundantly clear once and for all in the hope that this thread can address the actual issues at hand.
First, I think it is sheer folly to talk of “they” when discussing any nationality. One can no more say what Japanese people do than Americans or men or women or any other group of people.
Second, I think the problem is not that nuts on 2チャネル or YouTube are bigots - that we know. The problem is that mainstream TV programs single out irrelevant issues of race without even, apparently, realizing they’re doing it. The fact that Fuji felt the need to repeatedly say Cho was Korean, usually without putting that in necessary context, is telling. The fact that TBS had a banner on the bottom of the screen saying that a Korean went on a killing spree and considered the fact that Cho was Korean more important than, say, where the massacre took place, is telling.
This is perhaps unintentional, but a problem.

Third, I ask anyone who is outraged by a perceived blanket treatment of anything on my part to read or listen a little more carefully.

The editorial was about TV coverage, this is not about things media in general have done and does not include blogs, BBS, websites, newspapers, radio, or magazines.

Anyone else remember when that torso was found in Kabukicho near the Shinjuku kuyakusho a few months ago? The torso of the guy killed by his wife? Anyone else remember Fuji TV’s initial coverage of it? They interviewed old people in the neighborhood who expressed fear over the number of Chinese and other foreigners in the area and said such things were bound to happen with so many foreigners around. The implication that that horrible crime was committed by a foreigner, probably Chinese, was abundantly clear, almost explicit. Was it based on anything?

The assumption that Chinese and Koreans are prone to crime and not to be trusted is pervasive in TV news reporting.

Comment by Ken Worsley

April 21, 2007 @ 1:37 am

Moji:

demonizing all the japanese media and all the japanese

That’s an almost hilarious misunderstanding of what I see written above; it seems as if it’s a purposeful misreading. I don’t think it’s fair to stick words or intentions in people’s mouths.

If I were to do the same (which I’m not), I could accuse you of saying that the entire world is anti-American. Or I could accuse you of being an apologist for biased TV coverage, just a mouthpiece for the establishment. Again: Such things would be ridiculous and dishonest to say, but would follow the same pattern and technique as what was levied against the author of this piece.

I don’t think anyone on this website is going to fall for comments that just make things up.

As someone who also watched the Japanese news coverage, I must say I found it to be offensively fixated on the perpetrator’s nationality.

Comment by Ken Worsley

April 21, 2007 @ 1:54 am

I would also like to mention that at a recent conference in Hakone sponsored by the European Commission delegation in Japan, the issue of representation of foreigners on television in Japan was discussed. This is not something DeOrio is making up; it is part of an already ongoing dialog on human rights.

As far as the conference goes, the Japan Times tells us:

Despite the differences in approach between the EU and Japan, all participants agreed that the media, especially television, play a crucial role in shaping a country’s immigration policy.

Claude Moraes, a member of the European Parliament:

If people see successful, law-abiding immigrants on television, it helps promote a positive image of immigrants. Conversely, negative media coverage of foreign immigrants, or lots of reports of foreign crime, leads to crimes committed by a country’s citizens against immigrants.

Obviously, in this case, the guy is a criminal. A horrible criminal. But the problem is the conflation of criminal tendencies with nationality by the media, especially on television.

Comment by Vimy

April 21, 2007 @ 9:19 am

A few more comments:

Cho is still referred to as a Korean. I saw this on TBS and Fuji TV this morning. But It’s mentioned only in passing. Yes, the news is stating the obvious and don’t need to, but the coverage now has nothing to do with Koreans immigrants committing crimes in the USA. The basis of the reports are not about Cho’s nationality. I don’t think that the media is using Cho to paint Koreans in a negative light.

As for Ken’s comments on the JT article, I agree, but the last quote is out of context, IMO. It’s clear from his video that Cho was a deeply disturbed person. The issue here is not immigrants committing crimes but that such a person can easily and legally purchase a handgun.

Comment by ken

April 21, 2007 @ 9:29 am

It might be a bit of a stretch, and I agree almost out of context, but the point was that race/ethnicity/nationality often get conflated with tendency to be a criminal on television in Japan (and elsewhere as well).

The question is do we see more negative images or positive images of certain groups of people on TV in Japan and why?

Comment by DeOrio

April 21, 2007 @ 8:08 pm

I think the central question here is why it is in any way relevant to keep mentioning Cho’s nationality, especially since he spent the overwhelming majority of his life, and almost all of the years he could possibly have remembered, in the US. To their credit, newspapers have been better than TV, and NHK has been better than other TV networks, but one would have to look long and hard to find a TV report, even a brief update, that didn’t mention Cho’s nationality.

There are a lot of questions to be asked about Cho and a lot of issues to be looked into, but what is abundantly clear at this point is that the fact that he was born in Korea is less than relevant. To keep mentioning it, which keeps it fresh in the audience’s minds, is reinforcing a negative and unfair stereotype that fuels the extant discrimination against a sizable minority within Japan.

I am not in a position to say whether or not this is intentional, but it is clearly irresponsible, unnecessary, and deleterious. Pointing out such potentially harmful irresponsibility is not only not unfair to particular media or media as a whole, but is the duty of anyone who’d like to see such things changed. Give praise where praise is due and criticize where criticism is due.

Comment by Vimy

April 21, 2007 @ 10:18 pm

Ken, I agree. Negative depictions of foreigners serves no purpose. However, it’s not a question of balancing the good with the bad. The news isn’t about balance, it’s about the truth. Report the facts minus the spin.

Getting back to Cho being a Korean. I still disagree with DeOrio. I don’t see the TV news in Japan using Cho’s Korean-ness to present foreigners or immigrants in a negative way. As far as I can tell, the Japanese media has reported all of the facts in this horrible story: Cho is a Korean. He has lived in America for much of his life. He legally bought a handgun. He killed a lot of people.

My next question is, if it is so objectionable to refer to Cho as being Korean, what should the Japanese media call him? A Korean who has lived in America for most of his life? A landed immigrant? A Korean-American? A student at VT?

I say this because, playing the Devil’s advocate here, when the Japanese media says Cho was Korean, aren’t they stating a fact? Is the problem here that the Japanese are saying something that doesn’t fit what you think how the news should be presented?

Comment by ken

April 22, 2007 @ 12:55 am

Vimy,
I’ll let DeOrio reply, but I think your comment above just goes full circle back to the beginning. Once again, the point made was about the initial TV news coverage (not ‘the media’) and the huge amount of attention, almost to the point of it being gleeful, that was given to the point of Cho having been a Korean national. I saw this as well and I found it to be distasteful and actually offensive.

Comment by DeOrio

April 22, 2007 @ 3:14 am

Vimy, the problem, as I stated above, is the frequency and consistency with which they call Cho Korean. Why call him anything? Why not just “Cho Seung-Hui”? Why not “mass murderer Cho”? Why not “Virginia Tech student Cho”? Why not “angry young man Cho”? Why not “gun-totin’ Cho”? Any number of descriptive phrases would be a lot more appropriate.

When Alex Ramirez hits a home run, does any TV station remind us repeatedly, sometimes twice in the same sentence, that he’s Venezuelan? When BoA sells a million records, do we repeatedly hear that she’s Korean? Is Asashoryu consistently referred to as “Mongolian Asashoryu, from Mongolia”?

Their nationalities are known and mentioned, it’s not a secret, but their achievements are allowed to stand and they are often, even usually, talked about without their nationalities being mentioned.

My objection is not that TV stations (and I have repeatedly specified TV, without ever implying anythng about “the Japanese” - this is not a foreigner/native thing at all) mention or explain Cho’s nationality, only that his being Korean is one of the most repeated facts of his case.

Whether or not something is true is not the only mark of bias in news coverage. Often far more important is the selection of what is and is not mentioned. Cho’s Korean nationality is mentioned, even now, more often than his having grown up in Virginia or his having been angry at “rich kids.” By repeatedly reminding us that he was Korean (which was more of a legal status than a refelction of who he was or where he was from), it gives the impression that an irrelevant factoid is an integral part of the story. That’s misleading and irresponsible.

To use the example I mentioned above as a parallel, when that torso was found in Kabukicho, some facts were mentioned: Yes, a grisly murder had been committed. Yes, a number of foreigners lived in the area. Yes, some old people found that scary. None of that was untrue. Conflating those facts by reporting that a torso was found, then interviewing old people and asking them if the foreigners in the neighborhood scared them was a clear case of bias, clearly implying that a foreigner was responsible. That’s despciable and dishonest. That’s pretty much what’s going on when we hear again and again that Cho was a Korean national. There’s only one reason to keep saying it. The only real question is whether or not it’s intentional.

Again, this was an invective aimed at one segment of one medium: TV news. In no way is it even a criticism, much less a rant against Japanese media in general, far less the entire populace of Japan.

Comment by moji

April 24, 2007 @ 2:26 am

Deorio,
I understand what you want to say. I have seen emotional reactions to foreign crimes in japanese TV for years, and it has made me disgusting. I have been a little nervous to recent Western media coverage of japanese politics(resurgence of ultranationalism, militarism etc.), though I take usually aside with liberals. Sorry for a bit nationalistic reaction.

Comment by ken

April 24, 2007 @ 2:31 am

Moji,

I agree with you on a lot of the Western coverage on Japan. How often do they mention that Japan has cut its defense budget five years in a row, for example?

Sometimes nationalism is a very natural response to being ‘attacked,’ especially when much of the Western media understands so little of the context behind the stories they’re writing about Japan.

Comment by Cal Hobbs

April 26, 2007 @ 3:25 am

I had just gotten off an 11 hour flight from Narita to Chicago when I heard about this tradegy.

I sat in an airport bar and watched the television reports for a few hours waiting for a connecting flight.

As with any “breaking story” covered by the U.S. media, the coverage was long on words and short on detail.

Later when they identified the killer the media was equally clueless. Naturally no one could say why he did this.

I think the mentionned his nationality for a couple of reasons. 1. The most recent mass killings in the US have been carried out by white American boys who have become segregated from their peer group. The Columbine killers come to mind. Two suburban white kids from nice middle-class homes don trenchcoats and use automatic weapons to get revenge against the cool kids who they thought excluded them.

2. The media was focused on a student of foreign extraction because, probably to the dismay of the media, there was no evidence that this was a terrorist action or that the killer was Islamic.

3. I have heard black leaders admit relief that the killer was not black (like the DC snipers.)

4. America has become polarized over the whole issue immigrants. Of course, very little of that focuses on Asian-immigrants and Cho’s family has been in the US for a long time.

In the week since the media has kept this story at the top of the page far long than any news value would justify BUT I have seen nothing to indicate that the incident created any anti-Asian or anti-Korean feelings in the US. And there has been no mention of any feelings of that nature on the VT campus.

Comment by Jarad

April 26, 2007 @ 3:21 pm

Clearly from looking at the videos and what how he did the shootings it is clear that there was something else going on. I don’t think anyone who can look someone in the eye and kill thirty three people with a gun that he had to have stopped firing and reloaded at least once has a firm grip on reality or humanity. It seemed to me that he was quite influenced by religion. The saddest part of this is that there isn’t more discussion about handgun control in the US afterwards. I also got the impression that he was an exchange student from Korea listening to the Japanese news.

Comment by Cal Hobbs

April 26, 2007 @ 11:41 pm

Jarad
I have not heard any mention in the US press to religion as a factor.

It is interesting that while it seems that in Japan there is a major issue concerning nationality and perhaps a perception in the Japanese media that the Chinese or Koreans are more prone to violence, I see none of that in the US.

In fact, everything I have read in the US indicates that Asian-Americans or Asian immigrants are rarely implicated in criminal activity. I know that their representation in prison populations here is far lower than their representation in the general population.

While many Americans know very little about Asians (and references to Orientals are common), it is my perception that the most common stereotypes in the States are that Asians are: 1. very hard working, and 2. very smart.

And I have to say that based on the Asian-Americans I have met the first is almost universal. I cannot think of a single example where the individual hasn’t been a virtual workaholic- and that applies to the people owning small stores as well as professionals.

That said, the US media still references Cho with the comment that he is Korean. It is odd because he is Korean in much the same way that many other Americans are Irish or Italian. He might have been born in Korea but he was raised and educated in America.

Comment by DeOrio

May 3, 2007 @ 6:58 am

Moji, what worries me is not so much an emotional reaction crimes committed by foreigners as the assumption or the desire to believe that crimes are committed by foreingers. The examples I mentioned were of crimes that weren’t committed by foreigners, but were reported in such a way as to imply that they were.

Cal, I didn’t really expect an anti-Asian backlash either at VT or in the US in general. While racism still exists in the US, it generally takes on a public face in making fun of stereotypes or in viewing people as a group.

After the Spetember 11th attacks, anti-Muslim backlash was less than a lot of people feared and less violent than what occurred in Australia, where the attacks hadn’t even taken place. Since that time, it has become apparent that Muslim immigrants in the US find it easier to fit in than their counterparts in Europe.

East Asians in the US, if anything, seem to receive “positive” racism.

Every country exhibits the greatest discrimination against the largest minorities or those perceived to be causing trouble. In the US, this would be Blacks or Latino immigrants. American-born Blacks tend to be less economically successful and attain lower level of education than African immigrants, which I find somewhat surprising.

In Japan, both the large minority and perceived troublemaker roles are filled by non-Japanese East Asians, especially Koreans and Chinese, although South Americans, especially Brazilians and Peruvians, of Japanese descent or claimed Japanese descent have been getting more attention lately. They fit the mold of immigration more as it is seen in the US - poor ability in the local language, less education, dramatically lower economic status. They also tend to be somewhat more isolated than Korean or Chinese immigrants, who have access to larger and more established Korean and Chinese communities.

Comment by DeOrio

May 3, 2007 @ 7:02 am

Oh, and Jarad, you’re absolutely right about the gun control angle. I heard a number of American politicians on both sides dodge the issue by saying the aftermath of such a killing was not the time to discuss such issues. Since when? Since when does any issue get discussed in the US other than when there’s a disaster involved?

Tossing up a veneer of propriety in order to avoid politically difficult topics is despicable.

Pingback by Pajamas Media » What’s the Matter with Japan?

June 11, 2008 @ 3:51 am

[…] On Monday, one of the college freshmen I teach said, “At least it wasn’t Cho [Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter]. If Japan had [readily available and legal] guns, it would have been a lot worse. But this is a big problem for Japan. People are losing their morals.” […]