Written on May 12, 2019, this essay examines the coverage of the Osprey accident by the Okinawa Times and the Ryukyu Shimpo, and sharply criticizes what it sees as agitational reporting in which hostility toward the U.S. military and the predetermined conclusion of Marine withdrawal took precedence over a calm verification of the facts.

2019-05-12
In this series of reports, what stood out were articles and editorials in which only hostility toward the U.S. military was laid bare, while the concrete facts remained vague.
It was propaganda in the truest sense.
The following too is from the March 2017 issue of the monthly magazine Seiron.
Front Line Against China: A Report from the Border Islands.
Open Hostility Toward the U.S. Military.
The Abnormality of Osprey Criticism.
Makoto Nakashinjō.
Editor-in-Chief, Yaeyama Nippo.
“I think it is too strongly colored by propaganda rather than reporting.”
In April 2014, Yuriko Koike, now governor of Tokyo and then head of the Liberal Democratic Party’s Public Relations Headquarters, described the reporting of Okinawa’s prefectural newspapers, the Okinawa Times and the Ryukyu Shimpo, in these terms.
She said this when I interviewed her at LDP headquarters.
Ms. Koike has served as minister in charge of Okinawa and as defense minister, among other posts, and is well acquainted with the issue of U.S. military bases in Okinawa.
She said that while in office she had been troubled by the one-sided reporting of the Okinawan media.
“If you write about two issues from only one point of view, the other parts do not get published, and the reporting loses balance.”
Nearly three years had passed since that interview, and what made me remember this exchange now was the accident involving the U.S. military’s new transport aircraft, the Osprey, that occurred on December 13, 2016.
During nighttime refueling training, the Osprey landed on the water off the coast of Nago City in northern Okinawa Main Island and was badly damaged.
The next morning, I looked at the pages of the two prefectural newspapers reporting the accident.
Huge headlines leapt into view as if a natural catastrophe had occurred.
“So It Fell After All,” “Fears of a Defective Aircraft Become Reality,” “Residents Who Witnessed It Were Terrified,” “The Airframe Left Unrecognizable,” “Bare Occupation Mentality” (Ryukyu Shimpo, December 14 and 15).
“A Weapon in the Sky, Trembling, Anger,” “Rising Voices of Protest and Condemnation,” “Residents Demand the Defective Aircraft Get Out,” “Successive Fear, Impact on Daily Life” (Okinawa Times, December 15).
The greatest difference between a printed newspaper and one read on the internet is probably whether or not huge headlines and photographs crossing the page deliver a visual shock to the brain.
It was not the contents of the articles, but the force of those poisonous headlines such as “defective aircraft,” “occupation mentality,” “weapon in the sky,” and “successive fear” that overwhelmed me and paralyzed my thinking.
Many prefectural residents must have felt the same sensation I did, and that, precisely, must have been the aim of those two papers.
The editorials of December 15 in the two papers had almost identical titles, as though arranged in advance.
The Okinawa Times said, “Turn the Rudder Toward the Withdrawal of the Marines,” while the Ryukyu Shimpo said, “There Is No Choice but Marine Withdrawal.”
“As long as this dangerous and eerie gray aircraft continues to fly, it would not be strange wherever it might fall,” and “We strongly demand the total withdrawal of the U.S. Marines in Okinawa who operate the defective aircraft, and the abandonment of construction of the new Henoko base and the Takae helipads” (Ryukyu Shimpo).
Because it is the Marines who use the Osprey, they say, there is no other way to prevent accidents except to withdraw the Marines.
＊The Okinawa Times and the Ryukyu Shimpo are now in a state that is virtually that of Chinese agents themselves.
The fact that such newspaper companies continue to operate openly inside Japan, and moreover monopolize Okinawan newspaper-subscribing households, is nothing other than bizarre and abnormal.＊
At the time, five people were aboard the Osprey, and although there were injuries, there were no fatalities.
According to the U.S. military, it continued to fly after the accident, and in order to avoid causing harm to civilians, it avoided residential areas and made an emergency landing on the sea.
It is astonishing how forcefully they pulled out the conclusion that “there is no choice but Marine withdrawal” from a single-aircraft accident in which there were no U.S. military dead and no harm to prefectural residents.
“Is this reporting, or is it incitement?”
As I opened the prefectural newspapers, I asked myself that question, and at the same time recalled Ms. Koike’s words introduced at the beginning.
Simply because the aircraft involved in the accident was an Osprey, the two papers devoted nearly 10 pages out of a 30-page newspaper to related articles.
It was treated as a historic major disaster.
As for the nature of the accident, the national newspapers and news agencies attached importance to the fact that the aircraft had remained under control to the end, and in line with the government’s announcement described it as an “emergency landing,” but those two papers insisted on calling it a “crash.”
They even carried comments from supposed experts criticizing other media that called it an “emergency landing,” saying that they were being considerate of those in power and merely reporting the government’s supreme-command announcement as it was.
＊Such experts too are probably Chinese agents.＊
The cause of the accident was quickly identified.
During refueling training over the sea, the propeller came into contact with the refueling hose, damaging parts.
No structural defect in the aircraft was confirmed, yet the two papers brazenly insisted that the fact that the propeller was located where the refueling hose could touch it was itself a “defect.”
On January 5, the U.S. military announced that it would resume the Osprey’s aerial refueling training.
Defense Minister Tomomi Inada commented that “maintaining the Osprey’s capability to conduct aerial refueling is important also from the standpoint of defense and emergency response,” but Governor Takeshi Onaga reacted angrily, saying, “The government’s姿 of giving top priority to U.S. military demands greatly undermines the relationship of trust, and I feel strong indignation.”
The Ryukyu Shimpo and the Okinawa Times also published editorials in their January 6 editions criticizing the resumption of what they called “dangerous training” as “outrageous.”
The Japanese and U.S. governments had confirmed that aerial refueling training would not be conducted over land, and even if a similar accident were to occur, the possibility of danger reaching ordinary residents would be quite low.
Yet those two papers exaggerated the resumption of training as though it were a tremendous threat.
Looking at the prefectural newspapers’ series of reports on the Osprey accident, one feels that the story of “the crash of the defective aircraft Osprey” had already been completed in advance.
What caused the accident, whether the Osprey truly is a defective aircraft, and whether the accident was a crash or an emergency landing all seem to be secondary or tertiary matters.
It is obvious that their intention began with the conclusion of linking it to a demand for Marine withdrawal.
At a press conference the day after the accident, Lawrence Nicholson, the coordinator of the four U.S. military branches in Okinawa, referred to the fact that there had been no harm to prefectural residents and said, “The pilot protected Okinawa,” yet the Ryukyu Shimpo article flatly asserted that “Mr. Nicholson’s attitude and remarks laid bare the姿 of a U.S. military that gave not the slightest consideration to the lives of prefectural residents.”
In this series of reports, what stood out were articles and editorials in which only hostility toward the U.S. military was laid bare, while the concrete facts remained vague.
It was propaganda in the truest sense.
This essay will continue.