TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/112789/11278900.074

Text File | 1990-09-19 | 6KB | 98 lines

PRESS, Page 79

Yellow-Peril Journalism

Is latent racism coloring business coverage of Japan?

By Ellis Cose


    "Under present conditions we are virtually at the mercy of the
Japanese," editorialized the Los Angeles Times. The Sacramento Bee,
equally indignant, warned of a planned Japanese "invasion of
industrial fields." And in a spirited appearance before a
congressional committee, the Bee's publisher argued for "protective
measures." The Japanese, he fumed, were after nothing less than
"control of the country . . . through economic competition."

    Those xenophobic outbursts were not made in 1989 but in 1920,
during a time of "yellow peril" panic over Japanese immigration to
the U.S. But they are not much different from the alarmed press
comments that are now greeting Japan's continuing economic
ventures. When the Sony Corp. announced in September that it would
buy Columbia Pictures Entertainment, for example, Newsweek called
the deal "the biggest advance so far in a Japanese invasion of
Hollywood." An entertainment-industry executive quoted by the
Washington Post thought the acquisition might be "bad for America,"
as did an economist who saw "a potential for propaganda."

    Mitsubishi Estate Co.'s purchase of controlling interest in
the Rockefeller Group last month set off even more worrisome
reports. JAPANESE BUY HEART OF N.Y., declared the Dallas Times
Herald. "The roll call of all-American icons falling into
foreigners' hands added a new name yesterday," reported Newsday.
"When the whole house is being sold off, it doesn't matter much
that a cherished heirloom goes as well," sobbed the San Jose
Mercury News. The Sacramento Bee carried a photo of "delighted"
Japanese tourists gazing at the property now controlled by "their
countrymen."

    The less than subliminal message is that Japan Inc. is buying
up America, a point underscored by the ubiquity of headlines
portraying Japan -- as distinguished from Japanese individuals or
companies -- snapping up American treasures. Similar coverage
greeted OPEC in the 1970s, when Arab oil sheiks seemed ready to
slap down their petrodollars and pick up America piece by piece.
Yet even the most alarmist press scenarios of that era did not
envision oil merchants daring to seize the home of the nation's
Christmas tree.

    Peter G. Peterson, an American involved in the Sony-Columbia
deal, wondered why Sony's acquisition was so controversial, while
an Australian firm's attempted takeover of MGM/UA "was mainly
treated by the media as a minor business news item." Part of the
answer, he suggested in the Wall Street Journal, is a "media
pandering to American xenophobia and latent racism." Sony chairman
Akio Morita, noting the U.S. Government's World War II internment
of Japanese Americans, surmised that Americans still see the
Japanese as "strangers."

    Peterson and Morita have a point. When Australian Rupert
Murdoch was taking substantial control of major American media
properties (including Metromedia Inc. and 20th Century Fox), little
was written about the dangers of media manipulation from Down
Under. Reportage focused less on the fact that the predator was
Australian (Murdoch has since acquired American citizenship) than
that he was Murdoch. Nor did warnings sound when Canada's Thomson
Newspapers acquired more than 100 papers in the U.S.

    Reporting on Japanese investment has been peculiar for several
reasons. One is that Japanese corporations are less open to
American governance than American companies are to Japanese
control. Also, Japan has been less than effusive in welcoming U.S.
goods. Then too, no U.S. bureaucracy compares with Japan's Ministry
for International Trade and Industry, an entity whose principal
mission, some commentators believe, is to plot Japan's economic
domination of the world.

    Perhaps most troubling is that Japanese direct investment in
the U.S. is not only three times America's investment in Japan but
is also growing at a remarkable pace. According to figures compiled
by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis,
Japan's direct investment (ownership of at least 10% of any one
firm) in the U.S. stood at $53 billion in 1988, a 52% increase
since 1987. Even so, Japanese direct investment was only one-fourth
that of all Europe, about half that of Great Britain and roughly
equal to that of the Netherlands. Nor was it any more one-sided
than that of the Dutch. Neither Japan nor any other country
imminently threatens to gain economic control over the U.S., whose
nonbank multinational corporations have assets totaling well over
$5 trillion.

    Dismaying though the financial trends concerning Japan may be,
economics alone cannot explain the current media attitude any more
than the immigration levels of the early 1900s could explain the
Nippon hysteria of those years. But modern-day Japan is hardly a
suitable candidate for press pity. American reporters have a duty
to be tough minded in their exploration of Japanese business
practices. Yet publications have all too frequently reached for
easy headlines and analyses that evoke some of the worse aspects
of the yellow-peril era. That is unfortunate. For, to the extent
that coverage of Japanese business is reduced to the 1989
equivalent of "Japanese plan invasion of industrial fields,"
journalism will be that much more diminished and readers that much
less informed.