It’s sometimes difficult to report on an international incident. Stories get conflicted, newspapers have to follow leads, and they’re pressed for time to release something to the public as soon as possible. Today’s crash for of a Bangkok Airways ATR72 showed how each Japanese newspaper can create a different story.

They did agree that the accident happened earlier today about 2pm Bangkok time, 4pm Tokyo time (although exact estimates are all different). The crashed happened on the island of Samui, with 72 people on board.

Asahi ”Landing failure in Thailand, the pilot dies, over 40 people injured” The time was 4:10 Tokyo time. As the plane was landing at the island of Samui, it went off the runway, and crashed into a building within the airport. 42 people were injured, including 4 people who were seriously injured, and the pilot was killed.

The passengers on the plane, according to the Asahi who heard this from the airline, were 80% foreigners. After checking with the Japanese embassy, it’s been confirmed that none of the passengers were Japanese.

Nikkei “Bangkok Air landing failure in Southern Thailand” The time was 4:20 Tokyo time. The plane separated from the runway and crashed into a building that was near the control tower. One pilot was killed, another pilot was seriously injured, along with 10 passengers being seriously injured. The Nikkei ‘s estimate for passengers with serious injuries was three times as many as the Asahi.

The passengers on the plane, according to the Nikkei who gets their information from the Thai Airport and Transportation authority, were all foreigners. The Nikkei also mentioned “passengers whose name looked Japanese were not aboard.”

Yomiuri “Thai plane crashes into the control tower, killing the pilot, and seriously injuring 6” The time was 4pm Tokyo time. The Yomiuri estimated that 6 people were seriously injured, less than the Nikkei’s estimate, but more than the Asahi’s. The Asahi claimed “the plane crashed into a building in the airport,’ the Nikkei said “the plane crashed into a building near the control tower,” but the Yomiuri took this one step further by stating “the plane crashed into the control tower!”

The Yomiuri also was the only newspaper that offered reasons for the crash. “Due to low visibility during the rain storm, the plane slipped off the runway.” They also were the only newspaper to say the airport shutdown after the incident. At least the drama of The Yomiuri’s account makes for a good story.

In case you’re interested in reading more about these happenings in the target language, you can look at Thai Online Classes or Thai Classes held in NYC. We hope that everything turns out okay.

Background: Japan is a perfect example of how the internet’s reach has gone global. One way to measure popularity of the internet is how many websites have been translated to other languages besides English, and Japanese has no shortage of translations in cyberspace. The internet in Japan has become a popular tool for commerce and social networking.

However, Japan is relatively new to abuses of the internet. Although sometimes incidents such as the Akihabara hit and run (06/08) were written about on blogs before the event took place, big websites such as Wikipedia have not seen abuse yet from users. The newspapers each had their own take on the “Wikipedia Incident”, the first documented arrest for abusing the Wikipedia website in Japan.

Asahi “3 Boys Charged with Writing Death Threat Articles” The Asahi reports that on February 26^th, three boys went onto Wikipedia and changed the “Buddha” description on Wikipedia to “on March 8^th at the Big Site Tokyo Expo, we’ll bring a rifle and kill all the participants.” In response, the boys are reported to have said “we did this like ten times.” Wikipedia has mentioned that this year from January to April they’ve had about 100 articles talking about killings.

How did the boys do it? According to the Asahi, the boys accessed Wikipedia through a server in Germany, hoping not be traced. They reported that the boys are actually quite prolific writers and usually update pages that have to do with video games.

Yomiuri “You’ll all be Killed” The Yomiuri’s depiction of the incident was dramatized for effect. Not only did they highlight this quote in their headline, but they also the charge the boys for death threats “without discrimination”. The Japanese in the article is 無差別殺害予告 , which literally means “in discriminatory prophesized killing.”

The Yomiuri also added that the authorities at the Big Site event increased the security presence in response to the boy’s threats.

Nikkei “3 High Schoolers Arrested in Fukuoka” The Nikkei had a very short summarized article about the incident but they did also outline that the students claimed that “they had written the same type of article at least 10 times on Wikipedia.”

(Background) While golfing in Rupetau Golf Course with her two sons and husband, Takae fell into a 5 meter deep, 1.5 meter around hole and died.

NHK Briefly Mentions – NHK News, after the G20 Summit and North Korea, mentioned the story of Taka e ¾ the way into their news broadcast. “We were walking behind Takae when she fell, but we did not see any hole” as reported by a policeman who spoke with the family.>

Yomiuri Dramatizes –Yomiuri’s title tells it all: “Woman falls into deep hole and dies before her husband and children’s eyes”. Add the grizzly detail of “when her body was found it was half covered in sand” and you feel like you’re reading a Stephen King novel.

Asahi Accuses – Asahi’s choice of words compared to Yomiuri’s made it clear who’s responsible. Yomiuri tells “workers that morning had surveyed the golf course and found nothing irregular” while Asahi claimed “the manager had surveyed the golf course and found nothing irregular.” Asahi’s closing paragraph stated the golf course could be investigated on “suspicion of professional negligence leading to death.”

Youichi Takahashi, one of the brains of Koizumi’s postal privatization, was brought up on theft charges today. Apparently his political acumen did not translate into an ability to commit crime.

The security tape revealed a man, looking just like Youichi, opening up a fellow bather’s locker. He took both an expensive Italian 100,000 yen watch and a wallet with 50,000 yen in it.

When confronted by the authorities, he confessed, stating “I’m sorry. I saw the watch and was interested, like what kinda person would carry such a nice watch?”