Sino-Japanese War coverage controversy WaiWai controversy and cancellation The
Mainichi Daily News column WaiWai, by
Australian journalist Ryann Connell, featured often-sensationalist stories, principally translated from and based on articles appearing in Japanese tabloids. The column carried a disclaimer since September 19, 2002: "WaiWai stories are transcriptions of articles that originally appeared in Japanese language publications. The
Mainichi Daily News cannot be held responsible for the content of the original articles, nor does it guarantee their accuracy. Views expressed in the WaiWai column are not necessarily those held by the
Mainichi Daily News or the Mainichi Newspapers Co." Nevertheless,
WaiWai content was reported as fact in blogs and reputable foreign media sources. In April and May 2008, an aggressive anti-
WaiWai campaign appeared on internet forums including
2channel. Criticism included "contents are too vulgar" and "the stories could cause Japanese people to be misunderstood abroad." Critics had accused the WaiWai column of propagating a racist stereotype of Japanese women as sexual deviants with its sensationalist stories about incest, bestiality and debauchery. The Mainichi editorial board responded by deleting controversial WaiWai articles and limiting archive access, but the column remained in the
Sunday Mainichi. Citing continuing criticism, Mainichi's Digital Media Division shut down
WaiWai on June 21. On June 25, Mainichi apologized to MDN readers. Some advertisers responded to the campaign by pulling ads from
Mainichi's Japanese site. On June 28, 2008, Mainichi announced punitive measures. Connell, who remained anonymous in the announcement, was suspended for three months ("issuing three months' disciplinary leave"). Other involved personnel were either docked 10%–20% salary or "stripped of their titles" for a period of one or two months. On July 20, 2008, Mainichi released the results of an in-house investigation. Mainichi announced that it would re-organize the MDN Editorial Department on August 1 with a new chief editor, and re-launch the MDN on September 1 as a more news-oriented site. Mainichi said, "We continued to post articles that contained incorrect information about Japan and indecent sexual content. These articles, many of which were not checked, should not have been dispatched to Japan or the world. We apologize deeply for causing many people trouble and for betraying the public's trust in the Mainichi Shimbun." Since 2022, the number of people coming forward with police brutality complaints against Japan's
National Police Agency had grown rapidly. One former officer inspector from a west Japan prefecture where local police were ordered by senior officers to target foreigners for questioning, ID checks and searches even claimed to the newspaper that "we were told to target foreigners." According to the former inspector, who used the pseudonym "Taro Yamada" when he spoke to
The Mainichi, "Officers around me including my immediate superior often said things like, 'People with Black roots, Southeast Asians and so on study ways to kill people. So use your service revolver if you have to! You have no idea what they're going to do.'" Yamada also stated that officers in Japan "have to be careful patrolling" in an area with many Korean residents "because there's no telling what they'll do." Yamada further stated that whites were not nearly as frequently targeted by Japanese police officers like people with "darker skin" are, stating that "I think that when police think of a 'foreigner,' they're not picturing someone (of European descent), but a person with darker skin, with Black or Southeast Asian roots and so on. I thought that way. Officers assume (light-skinned people) are tourists or have a Japanese partner. But with people with dark skin, they tend to assume they're visa overstayers." ==Offices==