James of JapanProbe.com blocks me and fails to correct his own post

I usually don't get into cat fights on the Internet, but this time it's about two things I'm passionate for--Japan and the Truth. Here's the deal, JapanProbe.com is an interesting blog that covers Japanese culture, posting on everything from the world's oldest dog dying in Japan to Thai factory workers coming to Japan after floods in Thailand.  So, it's quite a range of topics. The only problems I've ever had with the site was when the head guy over there, called James, dropped any pretense at objectivity and let his critical opinion color his coverage.

For instance, in a post about a video showing Fukushima residents confronting authorities regarding their radiation concerns, James was quick to call the credibility of the video into question, pointing out that (in his opinion) it had been "heavily edited" and subtitled to seem more dramatic, and that a confrontational citizen in the video is holding a bottle of urine that is far too big and contains far more urine than "any single child could plausibly excrete in a single trip to the bathroom."

In a more recent post, this one covering #OccupyTokyo protests, he called said protests held in solidarity with the #OccupyWallStreet protesters, a failure because of the low turnout.  Read my comment on this post being critical of the protest for more info (be sure to read the replies, to my comments, including James' poor defense of my criticisms).

Finally, James posted something about the anti-whaling group Sea Shepard Conservation Society seeing an increase of donations after said group increased their "violent actions against Japanese whaling ships."  In the post, James made no attempt to describe the violent actions or contextualize the situation.  He also made the claim that the head-guy of the anti-whaling group had lied on a New Zealand-based TV program, when he made the claim that donations to tsunami victims were going to help the Japanese whaling industry.  James said: "Television New Zealand’s failure to fact-check is lending credibility to a very ugly falsehood."

I left a comment explaining that I would no longer be reading JapanProbe.com because of James' inability to keep any sense of balance. I'd link to my comment, but James didn't approve it and then banned me from commenting:



One of the points in the comment that I tried to make was that JapanProbe.com isn't a personal blog, or an opinion blog, it's a blog that covers Japan, so, in my mind, it shouldn't paint any of the things it covers in a positive or negative light.  Calling the #OccupyTokyo protests a failure or a success is a bad idea, in my mind.  Likewise, writing a post that is incredibly biased against a video making the rounds seems like James is taking away the reader's option to make up their own mind.  And finally, in the case of the Sea Shepard story, it's one thing to report on the inaccuracy of the Sea Shepard guy's statement, but another to call him a liar.

Regardless, it's obvious that James doesn't agree with my take on his blog, which would be fine, if all he did was reject my comment and ban me.  But that's not where he left it.  He decided to be childish and leave a comment on my blog.  In said comment, he criticized my blog for the same thing I was criticizing his blog for.  The catch is that my blog is a personal blog.  I post my personal thoughts, opinions and experiences here.  There's no doubt that this blog is filled with my opinion.  However, go to JapanProbe.com and it's not clear that it is James' personal/opinion blog at all--not until you read posts of more controversial nature. Then it's obvious how he feels.

Of course, the real kicker here is that the Japanese government has admitted that nearly $30 million of Japan's own tsunami recovery funds are going to help the whaling industry, as Time.com blogged about today:



Here's an cutting from the post:

...the government did not do its beleaguered case any favors when it confirmed last week that $29 million of the national post-tsunami recovery fund had been allotted to the whaling industry, including to provide extra security for the whaling fleet.

Here's what James got right: those post-tsunami recovery funds were allocated by the Japanese government--this is not money donated from abroad.  What James gets wrong is that the difference is almost negligible.  Did the Sea Shepard guy lie?  Yes, in a literal sense, he did.  However, would you be willing to donate money to help disaster survivors if the survivor's own government was spending money on the whaling industry?

I would, but I love Japan but I'd still be pretty pissed about it.  What Japan's government is doing is what America's government is doing--propping up ancient business-models that are failing and, in some cases, are illegal or even immoral. Still, no reason to lie about it, but was it really "a very ugly falsehood" as James opined or was it just a somewhat misleading statement?

Regardless, if James would maintain a less opinionated stance, he'd lose less readers and produce a better blog.  Not to mention spend less time defending his posts in the comments and banning people.

In conclusion, it's my strong feeling that you should probably avoid JapanProbe.com as a source for Japan-related news and entertainment (unless you don't mind good content getting mixed with extremely opinionated stuff that I feel often borders on the inaccurate).  Instead, I follow http://japanlove.tumblr.com on Tumblr and subscribe to the RSS feed at http://www.tofugu.com.  There are a HUGE number of interesting Japanese blogs out there and, so far, I've only found one that really let their blogger's opinions get in the way of good content.