Is it me, or has NHK's News Watch 9 become extremely lowbrow recently? Take, for example, its Nov. 30 program, which plumbed news depths of banality with a story entirely devoted to the increasing popularity of black things. We were treated to a long list of examples of popular black items, including black food, black wine glasses, a black airplane (with black interior), black toothpaste and toothbrushes, and black chopping boards, which are apparently helpful to the partially sighted (making this the only even mildly newsworthy section of the segment).
Striking by its absence was any international story: no mention of the Turkish plane crash that killed 56; or substantial anti-Chavez demonstrations in Venezuela; or Russia suspending its participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty; or Osama bin Laden's latest video message. Surely such bathos and parochialism are unforgivable in the nation's main evening news.
If NHK News Watch 9 feels it really must discuss "blackness" and its alleged "popularity," perhaps it should do a piece on why one of The Japan Times' (black) readers has been stopped by police and asked to show his "Gaikokujin card" 13 times in six months ("Tired of getting stopped," Nov. 18 letter). I am white, have lived in Japan and traveled widely around it for more than six years, and have never been "carded." This, at least, would be a newsworthy item!
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