Asahi Shimbun, the second-largest newspaper in Japan, is calling for this summer’s Tokyo Olympics to be canceled because of concerns about COVID-19. The games, already delayed a year, are set to open July 23.
The paper’s editorial said, “We cannot think it’s rational to host the Olympics in the city this summer. We demand (Prime Minister Yoshihide) Suga decide cancellation. … Distrust and backlash against the reckless national government, Tokyo government and stakeholders in the Olympics are nothing but escalating. We demand Prime Minister Suga to calmly evaluate the circumstances and decide the cancellation of the summer event.”
Just this week, the U.S. Department of State issued a Level 4 travel advisory for Japan, meaning “do not travel,” because of COVID-19 concerns.
The New York Times’ Andrew Keh wrote, “Widely documented polling in Japan continues to show that most of the country’s population is wary, wanting the Olympics to either be postponed again or canceled outright.”
However, there is no indication that Olympic organizers in Japan or the International Olympic Committee are considering postponing or canceling the games. In a press conference Wednesday, Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto said, “Nobody has explicitly mentioned a view that we should postpone or cancel.”
As far as the editorial in Asahi Shimbun, Muto said, “… different press organizations have different views, different perspectives on matters.”
Here in the U.S., an Olympic cancellation would be dreadful for NBC, which has the TV rights to the games. Back in March, NBC Sports Group said it had set a new Olympic record by surpassing the $1.25 billion mark in national advertising for the games. At the time, Comcast (which owns NBC) CEO Brian Roberts said the network was protected against losses by insurance in the event the games are canceled.
“But,” Deadline’s Ted Johnson wrote, “the network would miss out on advertising revenue and a valuable promotional platform.”
More from the AP’s controversial firing
Vanity Fair media writer Joe Pompeo has weighed in on The Associated Press’ firing of reporter Emily Wilder for what the AP said was a violation of social media rules. Pompeo wrote that, depending on who you ask, “the firing was either a ham-fisted enforcement of social media policy, or a rash acquiescence to a conservative mob, which aimed its pitchforks at Emily Wilder over her college-era pro-Palestinian activism.”
Pompeo did more digging on what happened. Sources told him that not long after Wilder started, Peter Prengaman (the Western U.S. news director for AP and, thus, the boss of the Phoenix-based Wilder) had a one-on-one session to coach Wilder on avoiding opinion/bias on Twitter. They also went over previous tweets from Wilder that could be considered problematic.
Then, over the next couple of weeks as tensions in Gaza grew, conservatives brought up Wilder’s college activism and the AP looked closer at Wilder’s social media use. Pompeo writes, “They saw a number of new tweets related to Palestine, including the tweet about the media’s word choices, that they felt did not comport with the guidelines Prengaman had recently gone over with Wilder, and the decision was made to let her go.”
Pompeo’s take was there was a disconnect between what AP told Wilder in the social media training and what she took from it. In other words, Wilder thought she didn’t do anything wrong, while AP thought she had crossed the line.
If that is the case, AP’s decision to fire Wilder struck many as being too rash. Perhaps she could have been warned or placed on probation so that what happened could be used as a teachable moment.
An AP spokesperson told Pompeo, “We understand that other news organizations may not have made the same decision. … Because we’re a global news organization, we recognize that expressing opinion in one part of the world can compromise our ability to report a story in another. It can limit our access to sources and information. In some cases it could endanger our journalists on the ground. So we do our best to protect against even the perception of bias.”
Check out Pompeo’s excellent story for more details, including why outgoing AP executive editor Sally Buzbee was not involved in the decision to fire Wilder.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post’s always-interesting media writer Erik Wemple offered his thoughts in “How the AP wronged Emily Wilder.”
And then later on Wednesday, The Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr reported AP executives admitted they made mistakes in how they handled the firing and “took a much more apologetic tack in a town hall with employees.” Yet they stood behind the firing.
According to Barr, Julie Pace, the AP’s Washington bureau chief and assistant managing editor, told staff, “We failed to initially see this as more than an HR issue. We thought this was the type of internal, personnel issue that AP is used to dealing with. What we failed to see is how this impacted our staff broadly in so many ways. … We saw it primarily as an issue of social media standards. We failed to see that it is much deeper than that.”
Interview of the day
Yikes. Check out this interview on CNN with reporter Kyung Lah and Karen Fann, the Republican Arizona State Senate president. Throughout, Fann tries to defend the “audit” of the 2020 presidential election results in Arizona. Lah coolly and calmly points out that Fann is undermining democracy by continuing to question election results that have proven to be legitimate.
The best part, however, was when Fann asserted the process was transparent because it has been livestreamed. To which Lah says, “By OAN,” referring to the pro-Trump One America News Network.
Fann said, “Are you saying that OAN is not a credible news source?”
“Yes,” Lah said.
“OK, I’ll remember this,” Fan said. “CNN is saying OAN is not a credible one.”
To which Lah shook her head and repeated, “Yes!”
When it was over, CNN’s Brianna Keilar said the Arizona State Senate president was “like a walking infomercial for conspiracy theory news.”
CNN’s John Berman added, “First of all, Kyung Lah for president. … That was a terrific interview.”
History at the White House
