KITV has been advertising in advance of a series of special reports from Japan, scheduled for broadcast beginning today. I think it sounds like a much better news investment than sending someone to the wedding of the royals.
But there’s something wrong with this picture.
A sharp-eyed reader flagged the problem.
On their website, KITV has 9 screen shots of stories they are highlighting. One of them is for the series that Lara Yamada did in Japan. It says: “LARA YAMADA, REPORTS FROM JAPAN, EXCLUSIVE SERIES MAY 1 – MAY 6”.
However, the background for the title is a partial image of a Japanese naval battle flag, not the national flag of Japan which everyone knows as the white flag with red circle. The battle flag is still used on Japanese naval ships on some occasions. The use of the battle flag can be seen as offensive to the Japanese government and people under the circumstances which is it being used by KITV.
Additionally, it very politically incorrect because the battle flag has very bad connotations for Korean, Chinese and Filipino people who are older or elderly.
I also saw a promo shot of Yamada with part of the battle flag that KITV is using.
![[text]](http://ilind.net/images_2011/kitv.japan.flag.jpg)
The Japanese national flag is a red circle on a white background. The design used by KITV is likely based on the Naval flag, as this reader suggested, but is also reminiscent of war flag of the Imperial Japanese Army, certainly not a good choice of symbolism for this series of reports.
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Pretty typical of how imagery continues hidden stereotypes. Best guess from this is that much of the series will be playing off of all the old tropes.
And if anyone’s not getting the picture here, consider if the report were on Germany today and used a Swastika flag.
Wow. Talk about oops!
The title font choice is worth a snark or two as well.
The faux brush stroke letters – I mean, come on, let’s just squint and suck teeth while watching.
this is likely an extension of the thought process whereby people in Hawai’i gather millions of dollars in donations for a foreign government that has requested people not send donations while many children continue to go hungry living on beaches being harassed by the local government
Similar thoughts when youngsters tattoo that flag on their shoulders or use it to decorate their cars.
Raises the question of exactly how many people remain thoughtless about how offensive material can hurt other people. Having a diverse population has NOT rendered Hawaii immune to this. Diversity is wonderful but is not enough by itself to improve social disfunctions and keep things up with the times.
When did the Japanese government request that
people not send monetary donations?
Meanwhile, the American Red Cross is accepting donations to help folks living and working in several different states – in particular Alabama – get past the devastation caused by the tornadoes earlier this week.
I saw the promo many times which made me look forward to watching the series of reports, but the thought of the flag montage never crossed my mind. Perhaps I’m too young to notice until you pointed it out. Though I missed the actual broadcast, I managed to watch it online & did NOT see the imperial flag. Did someone tell them? Funny (strange) thing is that it’s still on their website.