Japanese earthquake journalists take it to new lows

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The behaviour of a swarm of Japanese journalists who descended upon the scene of New Zealand’s recent earthquakes has disgusted and outraged the Japanese thanks to its illegal and grossly insensitive character, with journalists breaking into hospitals to interview victims and taking an almost pornographic interest in interviewing a soccer captain who had just lost his leg.

The first incident actually ended in 2 Japanese journalists being arrested for breaking into a hospital in order to interview injured earthquake victims.

After the New Zealand city of Christchurch suffered a devastating earthquake which killed at least 145 people, a pair of Japanese journalists resolved they would secure a scoop by interviewing some of the injured victims – the only problem being they were inconveniently situated in a local hospital undergoing treatment.

The enterprising pair resolved simply to break into the hospital at night, but were subsequently reported by staff and arrested by local police for trespassing.

They were apparently later released without charge; the Japanese embassy expressed “surprise” at their behaviour, saying “it doesn’t seem they understood the meaning of ‘disaster area’ at all.”

The names of the journalists and who they work for have not been reported, strangely enough.

The wisdom of keeping Japanese journalists away from the wounded was soon demonstrated.

Fuji TV had its journalists interview a 19-year-old Japanese man who had just had his right leg amputated below the knee after being crushed under a building, taking particular interest in how he felt about the effect of losing his leg on his life as a sportsman, and his interest in soccer.

There's a video of the interview on the actual page, along with some opinions from 2ch. Be careful of the link though because there could be some NSFW stuff on the side of the page.

Geez... and I thought the Australian journalist who accidentally tweeted "had a long day reporting, time to sleep like the dead" was insensitive - this is a completely different level. Normally the Japanese media might not have taken such a big interest, but a class of students visiting got caught up in it. Is this how they'd treat disasters in their own country, or did they feel it was okay to get away with that sort of thing because it was a foreign incident they felt unconnected to? In any case, I'm glad there's been such a backlash from the rest of Japan about this. It won't fix how that young man feels about having his privacy and exploitation of his pain violated, but it shows people still care about treating disasters with respect.

I think someone got carried away with the idea of getting an exclusive. At least that's what I keep telling myself, because I don't like to consider the alternative.

I assumed when I first saw this that the Japanese journalists were there because of the school kids, covering the disaster from the angle of the effect it had had on the class who was visiting.

Then I heard about them trying to break into the hospital and realized I'd been wrong.

The Japanese Government was smart to disclaim these men and what they did. I don't recall ever seeing any coverage of a crisis in Japan, so I don't know if their behavior is normal or not.