International News Reports Now and Then

The following article was written as an assignment for the Newsroom Management class.

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(Note: You can also read the following article in a newspaper style here at Issuu.com.)

Information technology has changed how newspapers report the stories in dramatic ways. In this blog post, I'm going to compare the first reports of the New York Times on two big earthquakes that occurred in Japan in 1923 and 2011. By examining how the same topic was reported in the same newspaper now and then, the differences of the media environments in the early 20th and 21st century clearly show how information technology has changed (and not changed)  news writing styles.

New York Times Sep. 2, 1923 issue

One of the most remarkable points singled out in the comparison between the international reports of the historical earthquakes in Japan is the time spans the newspaper took to report the disasters. The earthquake happened in 1923 is called Great Kanto Earthquake. It was magnitude 7.9 and is now estimated to have killed 105,000 people in the Kanto area of Japan including Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba, and Saitama prefectures. It started at 11:58 a.m. on September 1st Japan time, which was at 9:58 p.m. on August 31st (EST) in New York. The first report of the quake turned up on the top page of the New York Times September 2nd issue (there were five articles about the quake in total). According to the article, the news was first received on September 1st through the associated press and the next report came through radio from Japan at 8:20p.m. on September 1st U.S. time . it took almost a day since the quake occurred and another half-day was needed for the article to be delivered to the readers.

Surprisingly, the time span it takes to deliver the news is not so different from that of today. The biggest earthquake ever recorded in Japan's history struck on March 11th, 2011. The quake is called Tohoku Earthquake. It was a 9.0 magnitude and killed nearly 20,000 people. It broke out at 2:46 p.m. Japan time, which was midnight at 0:46 a.m. (EST) on March 11th in New York. The first report on the New York Times online was released on the same day March 11th U.S. time, but the same article of the print edition was on the March 12th issue. These time spans now and then show that because of the feature of newspaper media, even today newspaper still takes a whole day to convey international news to the readers living on another side of the ocean.

New York Times Mar. 11, 2011 online issue

The other point that is very different between old and new reports is their news sources. Due to the characteristic of natural disasters, the news reporters, especially the small unit of foreign media which doesn't have its own helicopter, couldn't go to the quake-hit area immediately and report what they actually see and hear there. Instead, they interviewed the witness or quoted the news from other news sources. In the case of Tohoku Earthquake in 2011, the New York Times reporter took the latter way. All the information about the affected area was quoted from Japanese news media such as Mainichi Shinbun (newspaper), TV Asahi, Kyodo News, and NHK television. Some part of the article was based even on YouTube videos and Twitter messages. Another thing that the New York Times correspondent did for writing the article was to interview an American professor who happened to visit Tokyo and ask him his personal experience during the quake. However, many photos of the disaster were provided by the associate press so that the readers could know what was going on at the suffered area then.

New York Times Sep. 2, 1923 issue

On the contrary, the reporters and editors of the New York Times in 1923 had very hard time to gather the information from Japan. Because the cable connections between Guam and Tokyo had been interrupted, the only report was sent by the station of Radio Corporation of America located in Japan. The correspondent seemed to live in "Tomioka," which was "located in an isolated position 144 miles from Tokio" (This is probably Tomioka town in Fukushima prefecture in the north part of Japan). This correspondent said that he obtained all the information of the quake from a local newspaper. The New York Times itself admits in the article that the information was very limited saying that "Meagre reports received here indicate ..." Instead, they focuses more on how difficult it was to get the information from Japan at that point saying that "Communication with Japan, interrupted by the earthquake at noon, Tokio time, today, was still virtually at a standstill twenty-six hours later."

"Typical Yokohama" photo on Sep. 2, 1923 issue

What they do next is to fill the article with the general information about Tokyo and Yokohama (a big town next to Tokyo) to fill the page. For example, they explain Tokyo's geographical features in detail. They begin with the history of Yokohama (e.g. the U.S. Commodore Perry came in 1853, etc.), describe where Asakusa and other areas are sited in Tokyo, and even introduce the sightseeing spots (e.g. "The view of the river mouth from the bridge is especially fine, and attracts many tourist," "One of the best recreation grounds in Tokyo is Fukagawa Park.") The description is so detailed that the reader may raise a question why the article has to be so in detail. They got most of the information from a former resident in Yokohama who then lived in the U.S. As a result, the article goes like "Mr. Austin was inclined to think ...," "... presumably suffered..." There are four photos of Tokyo and Yokohama on the top page, but all of them are not scenes of the quake, but typical street shots that show how the towns usually were. There were some comments based on wrong information. For example, one of the articles' headline says, "Earthquake Centres in the Extinct Volcano of Fuji," which was not true at all. All the details mentioned above show that the reporters and editors of the New York Times at that time did what they could do then, but also show that the sources were very limited compared to those of today. To get to the disaster-hit area is probably still very difficult for foreign press even today, but the comparison above shows how various kinds of media are actually used as sources in the digital age.

New York Times Sep. 3, 1923 issue

The last difference that can be found in the comparison between old and new articles is about the vocabulary used in the old articles. Since they were written 88 years ago, some contain words that are no longer used in today's newspaper. There are some old words such as "wrought" instead of "worked." Different words are used to describe the same thing ("tidal wave" became "tsunami" and "breakwater" became "seawall.") In the old articles, Tokyo was spelled like "Tokio." The other interesting point regarding the expressions used in the article is the terms and comments which slightly contain racial and colonial perspectives. For example, when referring to the number of Americans living in Yokohama, the article goes like "... and of the 3,000 white foreigners some 700 are Americans ..." The term "natives" are often used to describe local Japanese residents (e.g. "the richer natives are constructed on ..."). Probably both expressions were quite normal in 1923, but we rarely see them on today's newspaper any more.

There are many differences in different aspects between the reports in the old time and today. Still there are same conditions that cannot be changed even today -- the feature that newspaper conveys the news of the day before and the difficulty for foreign press to go to an affected site immediately. One of the most interesting things that I found through this research is the coincidence that the Tomioka, where the U.S. radio correspondent sent the first report of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, is the very site where the Tohoku Earthquake hit in 2011 and the correspondent of the New York Times in Tokyo must have wanted to go immediately to report the situation.