Yomuiri Editor Needed

When someone first mentioned mistakes in that paper on this site I thought it was a one-time thing. But I also started paying more attention after reading previous posts here and have found that mistakes in that paper's sports section are very common.

I know I pointed it out a few weeks ago just because the glaring error of calling Yakult's manager "Katsuya Furuta" really bugged me.

I don't really have anything to add to this conversation this time around, though, except to say that the name "Anti-Hiyama" made me giggle.

I'd had a talk with one of the Daily Yomiuri writers about an article he wrote a year or so ago that went along fine, building on evidence that I thought was going somewhere interesting. Then all of a sudden, the conclusion hit without any relation at all to what he'd built up, and pulled a rabbit out of a hat on some other topic entirely. The writer in question said that it was the editor that cut out the other theme in the body of the article to fit in the space - but left the conclusion. I asked if he'd submit the unedited story, but he sited that his work was owned by Yomiuri, even if they didn't print part of it.

That's one of the major problems with the printed press in this age. There is no limit to the size of an article on the Internet, as it doesn't have to squeeze in between advertisements. The English paper press is worse with their desire to put many articles on the front page, breaking them all up and continuing on other pages - to maximize ad viewing. (It's easy to see old-media vs. new-media in how their pages are presented on the Internet as well. Needless to say, I don't view many sites where an article is broken up over multiple pages any more.)

There are many other problems with the editor, apparently. Like anything remotely looking like criticism of Nabetsune is rejected - until it's shown that Sports Hochi has a similar article on the front page.

Anyway, life in the mass media is all about word count restrictions and fitting between the ads. We don't have that restriction on the web, fortunately. And that's one reason why old-media fears new-media.

I can also understand how some things slip through every now and then, as I make mistakes often enough myself. (Kenji Kawakami pitched brilliantly in the first game of the Nippon Series but got the loss. No? He didn't? That was Kenshin? Ah, that's right. Blame it on the editor! Oh, I'm the editor?) I do do my best to correct myself, and Deanna does a great job of catching the errors (for which I'm greatful). The printed press doesn't have the luxury of being able to re-print the papers before half their audience sees the error - or attaching a correction to the paper the error was printed on.

If it weren't for pompous comments by Kuehnert and Wayne Graczyk when I was first introduced to them ("What gives you the right to write about Japanese baseball on the Internet?"), I might feel sorry for old-media's problems.

Boy, they'd hate me, because I never even played little league!

- If it weren't for pompous comments by Kuehnert and Wayne Graczyk when I was first introduced to them...

That's funny, as Wayne Graczyk got his start as a baseball writer after he complained about the poor coverage in one of the English-language papers.

Thanks for the interesting story and insight, westbaystars. We all make mistakes, but it's a little different when you are putting out a national newspaper. It gets to the point where I sometimes question paying money for such a poorly edited paper. It's a shame, as it's obviously not the writers' fault. I'll take Jim Allen's column over anyone from the Japan Times any day.

Given that Jim Allen's columns and many of the news articles and editorial content in the Daily Yomiuri are available online, and given that newspaper's deplorable proofreading and sub-editing standards, I'd say it's only the fact that the DY has the best cartoons of all the English papers (Calvin & Hobbes, Piranha Club) that keeps people buying it.