Let's Japan.org

Now we know why The Japan Times pulled its Tokyo Confidential column last year--it apparently was taking a page out of the Waiwai playbook and selling stories it did not own:

ジャパンタイムズ、朝日・読売週刊誌から無断翻訳・掲載

2009年1月6日12時4分

英字紙ジャパンタイムズや講談社インターナショナルが、朝日、読売の両新聞社発行の週刊誌の記事を無断で翻訳、掲載していたことがわかった。両社は著作権侵害を認め、コラムを中止し、単行本の在庫を廃棄した。

ジャパンタイムズ社は０６年３月～０８年８月のＡＥＲＡや週刊朝日の記事計１１本と、０１年４月～０８年７月の読売ウイークリーの記事１１９本を、許諾 を受けずに英訳しコラムとして掲載。講談社インターナショナル社は、週刊朝日２本と読売ウイークリーの記事２１本を単行本「タブロイド・トーキョー」「タ ブロイド・トーキョー２」に無断利用していた。

無断利用には共通する複数の外国人ライターがかかわり、単行本の著者には、毎日新聞社の英文サイトのコラム「ＷａｉＷａｉ」に不適切な記事が掲載された問題にかかわったライターも含まれていた。

The Asahi article says The Japan Times and Kodansha International translated and reproduced stories from AERA, Shukan Asahi, and the Yomiuri Weekly without permission.

The Japan Times violated the copyright of the Asahi and Yomiuri newspapers by translating and publishing 11 stories from AERA and the Shukan Asahi between June 2006 and August 2008, and 119 articles from the Yomiuri Weekly between April 2001 and July 2008. Kodansha International apparently translated 2 articles from the Shukan Asahi and 21 from the Yomiuri Weekly, and printed them in the books Tabloid Tokyo and Tabloid Tokyo 2.

The article concludes by singling out the foreigners involved, noting that several foreign writers were involved in reproducing the stories and that the author of the books (while not explicitly stated in the article, I assume it' s Mark Schreiber) also had a hand in producing the WaiWai column for the Mainichi Daily News.

The foreign writers undoubtedly played a role in this, but the Asahi doesn't provide any details beyond implying that they are the guilty ones. Will we find out that the Japanese management, just was with the WaiWai at the Mainichi, were derelict in their managerial and editorial duties, too?

There's no doubt that the WaiWai column caused everybody in the newspaper industry to sit up and take notice and start covering their asses. The Japan Times took the Tokyo Confidential columns offline last fall. Trying to access the column results in a message saying that it is under editorial review.

The WaiWai scandal was brutal for the pervasive rot within the Mainichi from the Japanese management, who were indifferent to complaints and did not know what was going on with the column, to the sheer hackery of the column's editor, who deliberately chose sleazy stories and embellished their translations. Are we to assume the Japan Times has been just as bad? Were they aware of what they were doing over the past 7 years? The newspaper has some explaining to do.

Sahashi's legal woes are just beginning.

I appears that Sahashi's trail for embezzlement has yet to begin, but arguments in the ¥16 million class action lawsuit were heard in Osaka District Court on Thursday.

The group of 24 students argue that Nova management (Sahashi, his directors, and accounting firm KPMG AZSA & Co.) owe everyone an explanation as to why the company failed and why they did not refund approximately ¥56 billion (roughly $600 million USD at current exchange rates) owed to 300 thousand students.

This lawsuit has just started, but Sahashi is already asking them to drop their claims:

Nozomu Sahashi, ex-president of bankrupt Nova Corp., asked 24 former students of the language school to drop their demand for about ¥16 million in compensation for unpaid refunds as the lawsuit against his alleged embezzlement opened Thursday.

One of the former students, who did not receive a cancellation refund of about ¥300,000, said, "I hold a grudge against (Nova's) management, which never explained how (Nova) went bankrupt and who would take responsibility."

Somehow I don't think he'll find many people sympathetic to his plea.

Asahi shimbun article

元受講生ら「説明責任を」　ＮＯＶＡ授業料訴訟

経営破綻（はたん）した英会話学校「ＮＯＶＡ」（大阪市）の元受講生２４人が、元社長の猿橋望被告（５７）＝業務上横領の罪で起訴＝ら旧経営陣５人と、会計監査をした大手監査法人「あずさ監査法人」（東京）などに、主に前払い授業料として払った約１６００万円の賠償を求めた訴訟の第１回口頭弁論が１８日、大阪地裁であった。受講生約３０万人に約５６０億円の授業料が返還されなかった被害をめぐって、元受講生らは説明責任を果たすよう訴えた。被告側は争う姿勢を見せた。

元受講生で京都市に住む男性（６０）は意見陳述し、「旧経営陣の釈明を聞くために提訴した。被害者に何の謝罪もないのはなぜなのか」と述べた。「観光地・京都で外国人と触れあえたら」と受講したが、突然の破綻で解約返戻金（へんれいきん）約３０万円は支払われなかった。「破綻の経緯と責任について何の説明もないことに強い憤りを感じる」

ＮＯＶＡ被害対策大阪弁護団長の尾崎敬則弁護士は閉廷後に記者会見し、「監査役や監査法人が容認したため、こんな商法が成立した。裁判所には、お金だけではない被害者の思いを分かってほしい」と話した。次回弁論期日の来年４月までに追加提訴するという。

Some snark on the Web for a Friday. Updated 12/15

• October: The Japan Tourism Agency is established to attract more foreign tourists to Japan

  December: Holy shit! Tourists are flocking to the fish market! We must put an end to this success!

• Taro Aso, economic genius: Give workers a raise because I said so.

  Meanwhile, back on planet Earth:

  Canon to slash Oita workforce by 1,100

  Honda cuts more jobs; Toyota to halt output

  Major steelmakers mull temporary shutdown of furnaces

  Sony to cut over 16,000 jobs

  Japan in worse shape than feared

  The sound of politicians trying to kick start the economy: Govt adopts 2 tril. yen plan to boost jobs

• Rakuten: Men across Japan rejoice as the days of jiggling when they decend a flight of stairs comes to an end.

• The governments of Japan and Ibaraki Prefecture: We're up to our ears in debt; let's build an airport that the airlines aren't interested in and in a location where there is no train service, no planes, and no customers.

• TV Tokyo: "Uncle Hitler" had a soothing effect on Germany.

  Brain-killing video:

• Lawson: Indulgences now on sale! Absolve yourself of your ecological sins!

• O.C. Welch, owner of a Ford dealership: It's the fault of traitorous American consumers who buy "rice ready" Japanese cars that the US auto industry has to be bailed out has failed.

• Jason, Yet Another Gaijin in Japan: I don't know what caused the global economic meltdown, but if eikaiwa teachers want to take working in Japan to the next level, they might want to consider working as a taxi driver, or a factory worker, or a convenience store clerk, or an electronics salesman, or maybe even work in a regular office building.

  UPDATE: Debito thinks the article is grand while Adamu at Mutantfrog freaks out over it.

Update 12/15

Via Japan Probe. Words fail me. Never underestimate idiots on a mission.

Something for a laugh.

I think I've seen one or two of these floating around the internet, but Jordan Pearson has been kind enough to allow me to post them here.

Not that you need more reminders about the fall of Nova and the chaos over the past year, but Jordan Pearson offers an excellent account of the collapse.

It would have sucked to be Jason Cornish:

Nova’s business model operated on paying for each month with the amount of new lesson packages sold in the preceding month. When demand for English lessons began to decline, its survival became precarious. When the Japanese Ministry of Education, Trade and Industry (METI) slapped a six-month ban on selling new long term contracts as punishment for its cancellation criminalities, the company was finished, and everyone in the Nova hierarchy, with the exception of the delusional President, knew it was just a matter of time until it went bankrupt.

Despite this knowledge however, not only did Nova continue to sign-up new students on short-term contracts and string instructors along with bullshit faxes and misinformation, they actively recruited new instructors from overseas, knowing full well that they would soon be stranded in Japan with no income!

Jason Cornish from Seattle was one these unfortunate chumps. He interviewed for Nova in September, and being sober at the time, easily got the job. The first thing he saw when he arrived at his final destination, Kokura station, was Kurosaki branch AT, Joi Wong, sitting on the shinkansen platform in shorts and a t-shirt holding a crudely-drawn sign on A4 paper baring Jason’s name.

As Jason remembers, “This guy comes up to me and says, ‘You Jason? Nice to meet you. Sorry about my casual appearance, but the bastards you’re about to work for were supposed to pay me two weeks ago and haven’t, so I’m on strike today.’ This was the very first thing I heard when I arrived in the city!”

But, as Jordan notes, deciding to cling to the corpse of the dead bunny or join G.communication was an unappealing choice.

The televised conference about the corporate takeover in November 2007 was a classic example. We were told we were supposed to turn-up in suits, and I was like, “Fuck that! Pay me and you can tell me what to wear!”, but sure enough, everyone else, except one other guy, dutifully turned-up suited and booted.

My “fuck-you-I-won’t-do-what-you-tell-me” attitude turned-out to be a stupid move, however. We really would have been smartest going with the herd – from a financial perspective anyway (which is obviously what it was all about). At the meeting regarding the buy-out (though the “buy-out” can be more accurately described as vultures picking over a carcass) we were given the option to either sign-up to the new company, G.communications Ltd., or stay with the bankruptcy-protected Nova until it officially went bankrupt some time in the future (potentially years). As Nova’s useless trustees, charged with finding a corporate sponsor, had promised us they would find a company who guaranteed instructors’ back-salaries and would at least partially refund lost student contracts, revealed at said meeting that our savior, G.com (who currently run Nova) were going to do neither, I refused to sign their broke forms at all.

I ended-up doing myself out of ¥150,000 though by not signing up to the new company (which was everyone else did). Some took Option B which was to go on stand-by and take 60 percent salary until they were offered a position some time in the future, as opposed to Option A: start work immediately; these people were given ¥150,000 to tide them over. This money was essentially a parting-gift however, as G.com surely expected most of the instructors to take this money and bounce. My clinging on to the carcass meant I was still technically a Nova employee, on 60% pay, until official bankruptcy was declared, even when I went home to New Zealand for a few months, and this was included in my back salary from the government. Eventually, most of the Option B peeps that stayed, having been categorically promised future employment with G.com, were done away with in a few months anyway, the new company citing less than anticipated customer interest as the reason.

Read the rest...

According to the Yano Research Institute, the effects of the collapse are still being felt. Their latest survey on the foreign language market shows it to be still on the skids, attributing the 8.4% year-on-year decline [PDF] to the "Nova shock." That shock has manifested itself in a marked shift from studying at schools to e-learning (studying via computer or mobile devices) and to corporate-oriented education services. E-learning increased 7.8% and corporate education services grew 3.4%. The survey notes that the decline in the language market may have bottomed out, provided that the businesses get their act together and regain the confidence of their customers.

With the financial crisis in the United States forcing Japanese manufacturers to cut employment and production, I'm not sure I share the tentaive optimism of the survey. There is still a lot of toxic debt that has to be dealt with and the full force of the crisis and the recession has yet to wash up on Japan's shores. There is still a lot of anger and mistrust over the way Nova decieved its customer and over the government's involvement and handling of the matter, and the receission may shrink the market yet further, killing off smaller and waker schools. It seems that GEOS is aware of this and has been taking steps to control costs so as to weather the coming storm. Maybe I'm too pessimistic. Is eikaiwa and language learning more recession-proof than other businesses? Has the recession affected you or do you expect things to chug along as usual?

Things are apparently looking good at G.communication. Its president, Masaki Inayoshi, sat down with the Chunichi Shimbun to talk about the past year.

Inayoshi says that the past year has gone well for the new Nova. Of the approximately 670 schools left in the wake of Nova's collapse, G.communication has re-opened 126 of them. Combined with the new schools and jukus opened by G.communication, they were operating 396 schools as of the end of October. These schools apparently have a combined capacity for 300,000 students, but the current student body is only 76,000, 80% of which are from the old Nova.

As for the problem of employing some 1500 of its instructors, the issue has largely been resolved with after reaching an understanding with the labour union in June. Inayoshi says that the instructors who wanted to stay on with Nova are all employed. Nova currently has 656 instructors, of which 500 are from the old Nova. He also says that the problems over the past year have been dealt with and the company is back in the black.

When asked about old Nova's faults, Inayoshi says that there was a lot of waste. There were too many schools, and alot of them were overly large and subject to high rents. He moved about 80% of those schools to smaller and cheaper locations nearby. He is also critical of the way Nova used to charge for lessons up front and has done away with that practice opting for a monthly payment system instead. He calls the system of spending lots of money on advertising and collecting lessons fees up front a "warped business model."

Inayoshi also notes that he's been able to attract Nova refugee students to the new Nova by offering them lessons at 75% discounts. He says that even when students have used up their remaining lesson points, about 70% decide to renew their contracts. To him, this is a sign that they're satisfied with the lessons.

As for his next move, Inayoshi says that he wants to set up an ocha no ma ryuugaku center in the United States next year. While the current center is in Osaka, he says that it will be more efficient to employ instructors in the States. Also, look for new Nova TV commercials in the new year in which the Nova bunny will make its return.

Comment: So Nova is profitable again, huh? I suppose when you drastically shrink the company and cut costs, that's what happens. One thing that stands out are the numbers: 80% of its students and 76% of its instructors are refugees from the collapse. Neo-Nova is a rump of its former self. It may be profitable, but how large can it be expected it to grow with numbers like these? It doesn't sound like it's attracting a lot of people. The return of the bunny will also be interesting to watch. Apparently G.communication will try and squeeze every last yen out of its corpse despite its connection to the tragedy of last year.

Original article

「ＮＯＶＡウサギ復活」　１年で黒字化達成、ジー社会長に聞く

2008年11月18日 朝刊

経営破たんした英会話学校ＮＯＶＡの事業を引き継いでから１１月で１年を迎えたジー・コミュニケーション（名古屋市）の稲吉正樹会長（３９）は、 中日新聞のインタビューに応じ、米国に「お茶の間留学」の講師を集めるセンターを新設し、テレビＣＭを年明けに再開するなど、積極的な営業展開に転じる考 えを示した。主なやりとりは次の通り。　（矢野修平）

－ＮＯＶＡ再建は進んでいるか

再建のペースは予想以上に速い。教室は（約６７０あった教室のうち）１２６校を引き継いだ。新規開校や学習塾への併設などを合わせると、１０月末 で３９６校になっている。（最大３０万人とされる）受講生は現在７万７６００人。約８割が旧ＮＯＶＡから継続して受講している。

－約１５００人いた外国人講師については、再雇用をめぐるトラブルがあり、６月に労働組合側と和解を結んだが

大きな問題はなかった。（再就職希望の）講師は、ほぼ全員引き継いだと思っている。現在の外国人講師数は６５６人で、うち約５００人が旧ＮＯＶＡからの講師だ。旧ＮＯＶＡが抱えていた問題点は、この１年でほぼ解決した。黒字化も達成し、大きな課題はない。

－旧ＮＯＶＡの問題点とは

教室は無駄が多かった。どこも必要以上に広くて家賃が高く、約８割を近隣に移転させた。また、受講前に多額の授業料を前払いさせる料金体系も改 め、月謝制を基本にした。多額の宣伝費をかけて生徒を集め、多額の前払い金を次の宣伝費に充てる。いびつなビジネスモデルだった。

－再建の手応えは

旧ＮＯＶＡの受講生が、未消化授業分を通常の２５％の料金で受けられる優遇策を適用している。それが終わっても約７割が継続している。授業内容に満足してくれているからだろう。まったく違う会社になっており、丸１年を機に攻めに転じたい。

－どう展開するか

テレビ電話を使った「お茶の間留学」の講師を集めるセンターを、米国に年明け以降、設立したい。現在は大阪にあるが、講師の採用面から現地の方が効率が良い。また、テレビＣＭも年明けから開始する。キャラクターのＮＯＶＡウサギを登場させ、新ＮＯＶＡをアピールする。

A translation of Part II of Sasaki's CNET Japan article has been posted. In this installment, Sasaki fleshes out the war between the internet and mass media, describes a meeting with senior management at the Mainichi, and cautions against calling the newspaper's critics trolls

.

Excerpt:

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.”

Read Part II.

So, not only was the Mainichi in a lot of trouble for printing sleaze in the WaiWai column, but it was hostile to its critics. Granted, the bulk of its critics were probably anonymous, but had the Mainichi come clean about WaiWai, they might have avoided a lot of grief for themselves. Instead, their attempts to cover their tracks and treat its critics with derision only added fuel to the fire. How does a newspaper stay in business if it doesn't have any readers again?

A few snark-worthy items in the news.

Talk A Lot English textbook: Foreigners at strict Japanese high schools can't speak Japanese properly, ride motorcycles, have long hair, dress like bums, carry knives, and bring beer and scary pets with them.

William Pesek, Bloomberg.com: Few people benefited from Japan's miraculous post-war growth. Yet, Japan is a wealthy nation, except for the income gap, working poor, internet cafe refugees, drop in the Nikkei, strengthening of the yen, and the BoJ's 0.3% interest rate. That's why I fear being mugged by old people.

Toshizo Ido, Governor of Hyogo: Death and destruction in the Tokyo area would be a windfall for Kansai!

Naoko Yamazaki, astronaut: The explosion of the Challenger shuttle was inspiring! [Did she really say that or is this some kind of transcription/translation problem?]

Taro Aso, Prime Minister of Japan: It would be really nice if wealthy people voluntarily refuse my election bribe pitiful handout money to protect the public from a violent storm seen only once every 100 years because it would save me the hassle of actually doing my job.

Gen. Toshio Tamogami, Air Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff: Japan was tricked into liberating Korea and China by communists and the United States. Japan's history is one of glory, so there's no need make things up about it. Hey, why is everyone so upset? Fuck you, I find your North Korea-like control over freedom of expression disturbing.

And finally, since the world is abuzz over the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States, a little dip into US politics:

John Hinderaker, Power Line (Time's 2004 Blog of the Year):

Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn’t raise his standards, he will exceed Bush’s total before he is inaugurated.

CNN: Bush: 'I regret saying some things I shouldn't have said'.

Doh!

A little bit more on the WaiWai scandal, this time from the inside.

Adam Richards from Mutant Frog Travelogue provides a translation of an article by Toshinao Sasaki posted in August at CNET Japan about the scandal that illustrates what went on inside the newspaper.

In it, we see that the Mainichi circled the wagons, daring its critics to bring it on, instead of coming clean about WaiWai. As Sasaki writes about the backlash, "its destructive force has created an astonishing situation. This incident may well be the milestone that turns the relationship between the Internet and the mass media on its head."

Why was the post-scandal management so inconceivably horrible?

I am sorry if this sounds like I am turning my back on my mentor, senior reporters, and bosses, but the Mainichi’s handling of the post-scandal management was just terrible. This has been pointed out several times elsewhere, but first off is the fact that the following passage was included in the June 22 “apology” article: “In a related development, a flood of messages and images have appeared online that gravely defame and slander a number of our company’s female staff writers and other employees, who are in no way accountable for this matter nor subject to punitive measures. The Mainichi Newspapers Co., Ltd. is determined to take legal action against such clearly illegal acts that constitute defamation.”

Second, their responses to media coverage of the scandal were awful. For example, they acted snobbishly toward J-Cast News, the first media organization to report the scandal, and this attitude became even clearer with their unbelievable response to a citizen journalist for PJ News.

Thirdly, it has never been made public how Mainichi views this issue internally, what sort of debate is taking place, or how employees see the reactions from the Internet. A two-page examination of the scandal was printed in the July 20 edition of the newspaper, but this article only describes the series of events leading up to the scandal, and contains nothing whatsoever about the company’s views after the scandal broke. Far from it — the article contains a shocking comment from freelance journalist Kunio Yanagita: “The fact that these attacks on a failure are taking the appearance of violence caused by Internet agitation make me fear that the dark underbelly of the anonymous Internet is no longer a distant phenomenon.”

Read Part I.