Despite this being an ostensibly humorous blog about wacky goings on in Japan, there is something I need to talk seriously about. As I’m sure you are aware there has been a very large Earthquake in Northern Japan, in which hundreds and probably thousands of people have lost their lives and many more have been displaced from their homes. Obviously with something so tragic I could not, nor would not want to make light of it, so for one night only I’m going to do a sincere and non-snarky update.
When the Earthquake hit I was in the middle of teaching a lesson of 13 year olds, my last class of the day and we were wrapping things up. That day I’d had four classes teaching together with the English teacher for the 1st years and, true to form, they were the dullest least interesting classes imaginable. Just as we were wrapping up the lesson I started feeling a little woozy, imagine being drunk or on a ship in choppy water, and you’ll know the feeling. It was only when one of the girls shouted out that it was an earthquake did we sprang into action (not immediately mind you, we dithered for a little bit.) Our friend the boring teacher suddenly became the hero telling everyone to duck under their desks and cover their heads with their hands like in one of those American Public Information movies about how to survive a nuclear blast. Having no desk myself I rather impotently squatted on the floor and covered my head with my hands all the while acknowledging the fact that I had absolutely no protection if the roof were to fall on my head. The woozy sensation went on for about a minute and a half which doesn’t seem very long, but it was almost a lifetime when you’re in the middle of an earthquake with absolutely no protection. After a little while most people had registered that the earthquake was harmless and despite scolding from Mr Boring, some of the kids started to emerge from under their desks.
When the earthquake had subsided all the kids were chatting excitedly and getting a bit bellicose. I ended the lesson abruptly and left the classroom. At that point the atmosphere was very jovial, kids were milling about in the corridors of the school, (the lesson having finished during the earthquake) and I was chatting excitedly about it being my first ‘proper’ earthquake – There was a very mild one back in the U.K. about three years ago. It was only when I returned to the teachers room when I realised that the earthquake was a lot more dangerous than I thought. As scenes of devastation flooded the TV screen in the teachers’ room it sunk home to me that what I had felt just now was but the very edge of the earthquake.
When I got home I stuck on the BBC and Al Jazeera coverage of the disaster and saw the images of people trying (and failing) to drive away from an incoming wave of toxic black water. I saw the images of cars being swept off bridges; of fishing trawlers floating down streets; of the roof of the local airport collapsing whilst terrified travellers cowered in alcoves. In the mean time I kept trying to phone my girlfriend to try and make sure she was alright, but the earthquake had caused all the service on the mobile phone networks to go down so I couldn’t phone or text anyone. I tried to keep my spirits up by being flippant about it, but as I saw images of people frantically trying to flag down rescue helicopters from their semi-submerged houses on the TV, I knew even that couldn’t help.
In the end though I turned off the foreign news and turned back to domestic coverage and realised something. Although the Japanese news broadcast was horrendously low budget and they used the same tone of voice for describing the 9.0 magnitude earthquake as they did with the opening of a new sushi restaurant which substitutes the fish for fruit and the rice for marshmallows, it was infinitely preferable to the foreign coverage. It seems that in the wake of the Haiti earthquake last year, journalists have started falling over themselves to portray natural disasters in the most sensationalist light possible. The above images I described were shown both on foreign and Japanese news broadcast where on the BBC they were accompanied by frantic telephone messages with correspondents whereas on NHK they were presented as background images to the communication of dry facts about the damage. The tone on NHK and all of the channels in Japan was very much one of subdued concern whereas on the BBC, CNN and everywhere else it was one hyperbolic emotion.
Perhaps it is wise for journalists back home to not confuse conveying the human angle to a story with outright fear-mongering. Case in point; after the tsunami hit the Japanese government noted that there were some problems with the nuclear reactors in Fukushima. When these were later revealed to be explosions at the plants MSNBC and everyone else went ballistic printing titles such as JAPANESE WORKERS FRANTICALLY TO CONTAIN NUCLEAR DISASTER and TENS OF THOUSANDS FLEE AS JAPAN'S NUCLEAR CRISIS INTENSIFIES. For the outside watcher it would seem as if the power plants were facing a Chernobyl-style meltdown and millions of people are to be affected by radiation poisoning. The articles themselves contain very little besides outright fear-mongering and out of context quotes from officials and anti-nuclear campaigners who have a vested interest in making nuclear power look as dangerous as possible. In reality, the worst the meltdowns are predicted to be is a level 4 meltdown, which is a partial meltdown. To put it into context; Chernobyl was a level 7 meltdown (the worst nuclear accident) and Three Mile Island was a level 5 partial meltdown. Whilst a level 4 partial meltdown is an extremely serious affair and poses a major health hazard to those in the immediate vicinity, throwing around terms like ‘apocalyptic’ is entirely disingenuous.
Misrepresenting the severity of a natural disaster in order to increase ratings and market share is very dangerous indeed, not only does it fictionalise the event but it undermines the messages of hope we find in the tragedy. To be sober about the reality of the situation isn't to be stone-hearted or stoic in the face of unprecedented human suffering, but by sensationalising the coverage of the disaster the media risks portraying the rescue efforts as exercises in futility rather than as the heroic acts of selflessness that they are.
People in Japan are going back to their daily lives after the disaster. Whilst things will probably never be quite the same again in places like Sendai, the Tohoku region is not going to turn into the Japanese ‘Fallout: New Vegas’ (although if it were it would probably feature AKB 48 endlessly repeating over the radio rather than Frank Sinatra). People are picking up the pieces of their shattered lives and I implore you to donate (if only a little) to the Japanese Red Cross, ease the suffering of those who are affected the worst. Whilst there is real tragedy, please try and keep the salient facts of the situation in mind and when a newspaper or TV report suggest that Armageddon is around the corner, try to think critically about it. The victims of the earthquake deserve better than to have their plight sensationalised and politicised to the degree that it is. The next few months will be hard for the people of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima prefectures but if we all keep calm and rational we can help them a lot more effectively than if we freak out.
Next time: Back to the regularly scheduled programming.
