In this article, we present a translation of the second installment in a series of blog entries about the recent WaiWai controversy, posted by freelance journalist Sasaki Toshinao in early August at CNET Japan (see Adam Richards’s translation of Part 1). In the August 14th post, Sasaki describes a meeting he had with senior management at the Mainichi Shimbun, goes into more depth about the conflict between pro and anti-regulation factions within the newspaper, and responds to fears about “throwing fuel on the fire” by arguing that Mainichi’s enemies are not a bunch of trolls, but actually real ordinary people.

For those who are interested, I also interviewed Sasaki as part of a separate article at Japan Inc. about the use of streaming video in the June 8th Akihabara massacre. Many of the points he makes in this translation are echoed in comments there.

The articles are translated with permission from the author.

Original Japanese articles available here: Part 1, Part 2

Posted: August 11, 2008 14:38 PM, Author: Toshinao Sasaki

I met and talked with senior management at Mainichi

On July 20th, just before the Mainichi Shimbun published an examination of the sleazy articles, I had an opportunity to meet and talk with senior management of the company. At that meeting, I made the following points:

• Behind the conflict between mass media and the internet lies a generational conflict between, on the one hand, middle-aged and elderly people including the baby boomer generation, and on the other, the youth demographic consisting mainly of thirty-something members of the “Lost Generation” [people who came of age in the economic stagnation of the 1990s]. The conflict began to simmer in 2004 with the emergence of blogs as an arena for criticism and came to the forefront during the 2005 general elections. Contrary to the mass media, who repeatedly criticized former Prime Minister Koizumi, public opinion on the net supported Koizumi. Koizumi’s overwhelming victory brought the net world its first taste of victory, demonstrating that “public opinion on the net was more accurate than the mass media.” After this, however, no situation presented itself to bring this conflict back into the open. This became a sort of irritation, giving rise to the pessimistic view that “public opinion in blogs isn’t having any influence on the real world” and talk of the “limitations of blogs,” stirring up heated debate among blogging circles toward the end of 2007.

• Staff and managing editors working at the Mainichi Shimbun hail from the baby boomer generation, and it is for the generation of baby boomers, as well as older generations, that the traditional mass media was created. This situation has done absolutely nothing in terms of creating a space for discussion that is persuasive to young people. The mainstream media’s repetition of baseless criticisms about the internet, moreover, is seen as little more more than a reflection of the older generation’s sense of crisis over the younger generation.

• It was in the context of this simmering conflict that Mainichi — a mass media company that symbolizes the baby boomer generation — triggered a scandal of almost unimaginable proportions. This is not a simple localized dispute, but rather a war of confrontation between the net and the mass media, and between one generation and another. Mainichi’s sleazy articles were precisely the trigger that started this war.

• Whether in blogs or on 2-Channel, there are two elements regarded most highly in the discussion space of the net: visibility and logic. In other words, there is a demand that the processes by which things are done be properly disclosed, and moreover, that arguments be reasonable and built firmly on logic. While Mainichi’s response to its discovery of the articles may have been acceptable among fellow mass media companies, it proved entirely inadequate as a response to an internet world that today has grown incredibly large. The reason that many people are so irritated is that Mainichi’s stance has revealed nothing behind the company’s formal comments as to what employees are actually thinking, nor anything about how the company is trying to deal with the net.

After I explained these points, they asked me, “Open our thoughts to the net world — how are we supposed to do that?” I answered, “There are a number of ways, but generally speaking what they want is for you to talk, in your own words and based on your true intentions, about this succession of turmoil.” Unfortunately, however, Mainichi has yet to formally issue any such declaration.

Long interview with a manager at Mainichi

At the time, actually, I conducted a long-form interview with a manager at the digital media department of the paper, after gaining Mainichi Shimbun’s approval of the subject matter, with the arrangement that the results would be published in a different medium. In this interview, the manager spoke very frankly and honestly with me about the background of this incident and about how it had been handled internally. However — and this is terribly unfortunate — I am not presently able to release the details of this interview. The subject matter is amazingly fascinating — a manager speaking in his own words about the true internal situation at Mainichi — and it is something that I think absolutely needs to be made public, but ultimately I was never given the green light to release this interview. I will explain the reasons for this later.

I did, however, inform Mainichi my intention to announce to the outside world the fact that this interview had been conducted. The reason that I decided to announce this fact publicly is in fact that I wanted to avoid personal risk to myself.

Here is the situation. A few days after the meeting, I found out that news of the interview had been leaked here and there. I do not know whether the leak was from someone within the Mainichi Shimbun, or why this information was floating around. There was a risk, however, that a factually incorrect rumor of the kind “Sasaki and Mainichi have arranged some kind of backroom deal and agreed to stop the interview article” could spread and take on a life of its own.

In order to avoid this kind of risk, I came to the conclusion that it would be better at this stage to announce that the interview had in fact been conducted. The newspaper industry is an extremely political and frightening place. You never know what will happen, so I hope you will forgive me for having taken this action in order to avoid risk to myself.

Now then, why is it that the green light never came? The reason given by Mainichi is that they “want to avoid further repercussions to the business environment,” but this statement underscores the problem of Mainichi’s attitude with respect to “information disclosure.” This in fact symbolizes the attitude toward the disclosure of information to society held by the dominant group of people within this company.

Why is the “Internet Ascendancy Faction” angry?

As I wrote in the last entry, there are people within the Mainichi Shimbun, the “Internet Ascendancy Faction,” who are critical of the internet and who think that there should be a complete clampdown on information on the net. Some people refer to them as the “Information Control Faction.” These people keep saying that, “There is no need to publish any information other than what is covered in the internal investigation. Releasing extra information only throws fuel on the fire.” With the exception of apologies printed in this internal investigation, this group thus considers that all actions, including management expressing themselves in their own words in interviews, or talking honestly about their feelings, to be absolutely unacceptable. They have one strategy and one strategy alone: release no extra information, and ignore the net crowd.

Apparently these guys were also really angry about my last post, feeling that “Sasaki’s article has thrown more fuel on the fire.” In actual fact, when I published my last entry where I mentioned that “Advertisements at mainichi.jp have been restored,” the telephone pressure campaigns against advertising sponsors at Mainichi newspaper started up all over again, and the advertisements were once again suspended. That’s apparently why these guys have criticized me vehemently for “trying to destroy Mainichi” and for “writing delusional things without any idea of the internal situation” and why they are apparently looking for the “criminal” who “has leaked information to Sasaki.” I learned about all of this through e-mails from people within Mainichi.

On the other hand, I was also sent the following emails from people in the “Anti-Regulation Faction,” a group who thinks that steps should be taken onto the net and that information should not be regulated. “I can’t understand why company management is trying to control information. I think all the internal company information should be released and apologies made, and then we should make a fresh start from zero.” “There are too many people who do not understand what this level of confrontation with the net will bring about and what awaits us in the future.” Unfortunately, however, these voices are not the majority — or perhaps they are the silent majority within the company, but they are not the loudest voices. And they are completely drowned out by the voices saying that “information should be controlled.”

I am not an employee of the Mainichi Shimbun, nor am I an important business partner (I’ve hardly done any work recently connected to Mainichi); I am not trying to protect Mainichi from attacks and stir things up, nor do I have wild ambitions to destroy Mainichi. All I am doing is asking that Mainichi take a proper stance on this and take responsibility as a media institution, as a newspaper. Failure to do this will prevent the development of a sound relationship between newspaper companies and the net, while also bringing nothing positive to the future of the net. Unfortunately, however, many people within Mainichi have not grasped this.

What does it mean anyway to “throw fuel on the fire”?

Of course, from a short-term perspective, the thinking of the regulation faction within Mainichi, who say that “releasing information throws fuel on the fire in 2-Channel, and that will just make threads grow longer” is not mistaken by any means. It is often said in marketing that one way to counter flaming in blogs is to “stop throwing unnecessary fuel on the fire.” What I would like to think about for a moment, however, is this “fuel” mentioned here — what does this word really refer to?

The expression “to throw fuel” used in the context of counter-measures against flaming in blogs generally indicates pointless objections and deletion of comments. You don’t call proper explanations and disclosure of information “throwing fuel.” It’s true that recently the definition of “to throw fuel” has broadened little by little; in the case of Senba Kitcho [a gourmet restaurant that shut down after being caught reusing uneaten portions and serving expired food, among other things], for example, the expression has also been used in referring to revelations slowly leaking out — “actually I also did this” and “I also did that” — to the point where the truth of the situation gradually becomes clear. However, even considering that the definition has broadened this far, and even if the “full-scale publication of information” and “honest explanation by someone involved of their feelings in their own words” may cause all kinds of unanticipated ripples, these are not negative actions, and they in no way deserve to be labeled as “throwing fuel on the fire.”

The internet is a place. When new information is thrown into this place, ripples are sure to appear, just like when a stone is thrown onto the surface of water. Blog posts are uploaded, threads are started on 2-Channel. Bookmarks are posted to Hatena Bookmarks. And some people may start telephone pressure campaigns.

If those who create these “ripples” are just a small number of trolls creating a disturbance on bulletin boards and blogs, then it is probably all right to just ignore them. In any era there will always be people who leave annoying and meaningless comments on blogs, and there is little to be gained in getting involved with these people. It’s natural to ignore them.

Net users are not “trolls”

However, the majority of 2-Channel users, bloggers and Hatena bookmarks users expressing themselves on the net are not this sort of “troll.” The net world is of course far from flat. There are people who produce content such as high-quality blog posts and other creative works, as well as influencers, people who accurately critique this content. There are also people who support these influencers, or criticize, post bookmarks, and add comments. In addition, there are also those who do not have their own view, who are easily swayed by other people’s opinions and blindly follow the flow. The net is organized according to this layered structure, and it is through the collective of the infocommons (information sharing zone) that the space for discussion on the net has developed to become what it is today.

Many of these guys are moreover (probably) people living a proper life, and while the net population has expanded to the size it is today, they have been reduced to less than a minority group in society. And now they have become a force strong enough to be considered the majority. In this state of affairs, public opinion on the net is coming ever closer to matching real public opinion, and to ignore this world makes even the formation of public opinion unreliable. And, for better or worse, the net world has a weapon in its hands — namely, the telephone pressure campaign — that can be used to influence the real world. It would seem that the expansion of the war front from the internet to the real world will progress further and further in the future.

Newspapers, on the other hand, do not for the most part recognize this fact. Not only do they fail to recognize it, they remain under the impression that “net users are just some creepy minority crowd.” To make matters worse, they are utterly swayed by nice-sounding expressions that are in vogue like “throwing fuel on the fire,” and to top it off they are hobbled by their inappropriate and bizarre way of dealing with the net. I can only describe this as pathetic. In the end, it is they who are being completely “dominated” and manipulated by the net.

In fact, the reaction to the article in PJ News titled “‘We are not able to answer questions from internet-related media’: Mainichi Daily News rejection of search engines” suggests that the newspaper’s failure to respond to reporters and its control of information has actually managed to beautifully “throw fuel on the fire.”

Why are they afraid of being flamed?

If Mainichi adopted a proper approach and offered information directly, it is possible that there would be a momentary flare-up, but such a reaction would not constitute “flaming” that needs to be repudiated. The reason is that this is not “fuel” thrown only for the purpose of causing a fire, but rather “fuel” thrown with the deliberate intent of causing people to consider a problem. From the very start, the idea itself that flaming should be suppressed and the net space controlled is mistaken: it is impossible to control the net space. I cannot myself even predict whether this post that I am writing now will at some point become the target of criticism. The only thing that you can do is to believe that if you write the right kind of things, there will be someone out there who will agree with you. “Stop throwing fuel on the fire and clamp down on information” or “regulate information and try to keep the net from flaring up” — it is a huge mistake to think that you can control the net with ideas like these.

Crisis management in the internet age consists of making information thoroughly open, gathering together and releasing every last trivial piece of information, from the sequence of events leading to the outbreak of the incident to the response that follows it. In the cruel and yet high-trust world of the internet, nobody will accept reasons such as “because these are internal matters” and “because we are the mass media.” In this world of trust, full disclosure of information is exactly the technique that is needed in order to survive.

After publishing my last post, a middle-ranking manager at a certain newspaper company came to me and said, “The senior levels at our company are terrified about the Mainichi affair.” If they are so terrified, then my view is that they should write down in full what it is that they are terrified about.

“……. It’s afraid!”

There’s a science fiction movie called Starship Troopers. It’s a film based on a short story of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein, made into a movie by Paul Verhoeven in 1997. The movie is about alien creatures of an insect form (“the Bugs”) who invade the earth, with a story that revolves on the struggle of soldiers. Toward the end of the movie, there is a scene where the earth federation seizes the brain bug that carries the brain part of the bugs. The bugs are fierce insects, and it is a complete mystery what on earth they could be thinking. What they are thinking remains a mystery, but they nonetheless keep attacking again and again and slaughtering earthlings. The earthlings desperately want to know what it is that the aliens are thinking about. So the protagonist Carl, who has a psychic ability that allows him to read other people’s minds, puts his hands for the first time on the captured brain bug and reads the bug’s mind. A few seconds later, Carl turns to face the soldiers who are protecting him, and shouts with an expression of delight.

“….. afraid. It’s afraid!”

Newspapers and the internet today in Japan are about as far apart as the brain bug and the earthlings. The situation is one in which the level of understanding is on the order of this final “It’s afraid!” — the majority of net users having no idea what newspaper journalists are thinking about. By their very nature as media, the two should form a complementary relationship with each other, but there is still a long way to go. The first step newspapers should take is to fully acknowledge and understand the internet.

Apology regarding president Asahina

In my last post, I wrote that Asahi president Yutaka Asahina “is rumored to have been a member of Tokyo University Agriculture Department’s Zenkyoto [leftist student movement from the late 1960s],” but I received notice from multiple sources that “president Asahina was not a member of Zenkyoto.” That is to say, while it is a fact that they shared the same space, he was not a member of the organization called Zenkyoto. I wish to apologize and revise what I wrote. Although, it is not a mistake to say that president Asahina had thrown himself into the world of student struggles. I’ve heard about this from him directly.