The amount of information news organizations can convey is limited. Their budgets are shrinking, and there are limits to the time readers and viewers can spend on the news. In that context, the share allocated to international reporting is about 10% of total coverage, and when it comes to newspapers and television news, space and airtime constraints narrow it even further. As a result, much of what is happening around the world is not being reported, and even when it is, complex realities are reduced to brief, abridged content. Moreover, it is difficult to explain the fine nuances of the terms and concepts used in international reporting every time, and it is assumed that news organizations and audiences share their meanings. Even if the meaning of a term focuses only on part of actual events or phenomena, or deviates from its original sense, repeated misuse fixes that meaning in place and it becomes “common knowledge.”

As a result, words frequently used in international reporting may fail to sufficiently reflect reality, so in this article I would like to introduce five potentially misleading terms (listed in Japanese syllabary order).

Sana’a, capital of Yemen (Photo: Vladimir Melnik / Shutterstock.com)

“International contribution”

In Japanese media, “international contribution” is mainly used in the context of “assistance” from Japan to other countries. For example, over the five years from 2014 to 2018, in over 90% of Asahi Shimbun articles mentioning “international contribution,” the term appeared in contexts of support by the Japanese government or organizations, such as peacekeeping operations (PKO), the technical intern training program in Japan, or emergency and development aid. However, support is only part of the definition of “international contribution.” According to the Britannica International Encyclopedia (concise edition), international contribution is “a stance of playing an active role on international issues.” If one is to actively address international issues, then beyond providing support, actions such as refraining from behavior that exacerbates problems and removing their root causes are also extremely important.

By way of example, with regard to poverty in low-income countries, the damage caused by exploitative practices such as illicit financial flows (including international tax evasion) and unfair trade (unfair trade) is far greater than the total amount of development aid the world provides. As for climate change, the Japanese government has not actively pursued reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, and has continued to provide large subsidies for the construction and operation of thermal power plants at home and abroad that exacerbate climate change. Yet in Japanese media, coverage of illicit financial flows and unfair trade is virtually nonexistent, and there is also little reporting that seeks out the root causes of climate change issues. In other words, the media are not focusing on facts showing a lack of active efforts to solve global challenges and their causes—or on facts showing that improvement measures are being actively obstructed—and instead label only the relatively small amounts of “aid” being provided as “international contribution.” This likely leaves viewers and readers with a mistaken impression of the realities of the world’s challenges and the measures to address them.

Coal mine (Photo: TripodStories- AB / Wikimedia [CC BY-SA 4.0])

“Pro-◯ country”

In reporting on trade between states or companies, or on relations among peoples, the term “pro-◯ country” is sometimes used to mean that one country is favorably disposed toward another. “Pro-Japan country” or “pro-U.S. country” are typical examples. However, the term is ambiguous and potentially misleading as to who exactly it refers to and in what way. A “country” is not a single unified community. There are of course cases where one state’s ruling administration has a long-term tendency to maintain close, amicable relations with another state’s administration, but since that concerns relations between administrations, an expression like “pro-◯ administration” might be more appropriate.

As for the feelings citizens hold toward other countries, they are highly diverse, and relatively few people have enough interaction or knowledge to form sentiments such as “friendly” or “favorable.” People tend to form vague images from limited experiences and information. Even if they do have concrete images of another country, it is entirely possible that their impressions of that country’s administration and foreign policy diverge from their impressions of its people. Furthermore, separate perceptions may exist regarding companies from that country, distinct from those of the administration or the populace. There are many possible factors—whether those companies contribute to one’s own economy or are involved in exploitation, for example. Summarizing the entire populace of another country into a single image is nonsensical to begin with.

Nevertheless, the term “pro-Japan country” appears repeatedly in the news, leading to various misunderstandings—sometimes with potentially dangerous consequences. In the 2016 terrorist attack in Bangladesh, seven of the twenty people killed were Japanese nationals. Many media outlets described Bangladesh as a “pro-Japan country,” and reported with disbelief that people were killed despite it being known they were Japanese. For example, NHK’s “Jiron Koron” stated, “Even if it is a pro-Japan country, this incident showed that you cannot assume that ‘you will be spared if you are Japanese.’” In other words, until this incident the premise was Bangladesh = pro-Japan country, and thus it was assumed that even if an attack occurred, Japanese people would be spared. That is a simplistic and dangerous misunderstanding that fails to grasp the reality of the world.

Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh (Photo: Lain / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])

“Civil war”

When armed conflicts are reported, they are usually divided into a binary of “interstate war” and “civil war.” In other words, when applying the label “conflict,” the “state” becomes the primary unit. Even within that, “interstate war” tends to be used only in very limited situations. For example, except for wars in which the national militaries of two or more states clash on a grand scale—such as the Gulf War, the Iraq War, or the war in Afghanistan—most conflicts are labeled “civil wars.” However, once a conflict is labeled a “civil war,” it may be misconstrued as if the conflict is occurring entirely within a single country and the parties to the conflict are limited to actors within that country.

If we look closely at how conflicts actually work, it becomes clear that the “state” is not necessarily the appropriate unit. Even if the violence itself is occurring within the territory of one country, almost without exception foreign militaries and armed groups, as well as private military companies, are directly involved. It is also common that parties to the conflict receive bases, funds, supplies, and weapons from abroad, and that many companies or other actors outside the country purchase resources that serve as funding sources for the warring parties. Refugees often flow into neighboring countries, and the conflict itself frequently becomes a destabilizing factor for other states. There are also many cases where separate conflicts on the territories of multiple countries intermingle. Globalization has further accelerated such phenomena.

The conflict commonly called the “Syrian civil war” in the news is a particularly striking case. For example, in the five years from 2015 to 2019, there were as many as 739 Asahi Shimbun articles containing the term “Syrian civil war.” But in the Syrian conflict, the United States, Russia, Iran, Turkey, and Israel became direct parties; at times these countries clashed directly inside Syria, and parts of the country were occupied. In addition, the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and multiple private military companies from abroad joined the fighting. When the armed group known as the “Islamic State” (IS) brought parts of Syria and Iraq under its control, it tore down the fences at the border and acted as if borders did not exist. Kurdish forces also span the territories of multiple states. In short, the “civil war” label does not capture the essence of this conflict at all. Although the degree of external involvement varies, it is hardly the case that there exist conflicts in the world that are sufficiently domestic to warrant the term “civil war.”

Syrian conflict (Photo: ART Production / Shutterstock.com)

“Developing countries”

Used in the news as the antonym of the so-called “developed countries,” the term is often abbreviated in Japanese. Its biggest problem is that it presupposes that the countries in question are “on the way” to development. In other words, it carries a forward-looking (hopeful) implication that their economic and developmental conditions are improving—and perhaps even conjures the image that they will someday reach the development level of “developed countries.” This does not necessarily reflect these countries’ realities.

For example, there is the fact that the economies of many African countries declined from the 1980s to the 1990s. The term “developing countries” continues to be used even when an economy is far from developing. Moreover, global inequality continues to widen, and despite the lack of prospects for low-development countries to catch up with higher-development ones, the term risks creating the misunderstanding that the global economic situation is moving in an overall “better direction.”

Rather than expressing a trend or outlook, a more neutral term describing current conditions would be “low-income countries.” The United Nations also uses the term “developing countries,” but within that it designates a category of Least Developed Countries (LDCs), and 47 countries—about a quarter of all countries—are classified there. However, looking at two decades (2000–2019) of international reporting in Yomiuri Shimbun, more neutral terms such as low-income countries (42 articles), least developed countries (48 articles), and “poorest countries” (414 articles) were used far less frequently than developing countries (1,025 articles) and the abbreviated “developing countries” usage (5,517 articles).

Kandahar, Afghanistan (Photo: Nate Derrick / Shutterstock.com)

“Fair trade”

Fair trade refers to fair or equitable trade and is a movement to promote purchasing resources and products such as agricultural commodities and minerals from low-income countries at fair prices. Recognizing that producers in low-income countries have long been in a weak position that forced them to sell to trading houses at unfairly low prices, it guarantees producers a minimum price and a “fair trade premium” (incentive funding) to be used for development activities such as infrastructure in the production region. In other words, fair trade is an attempt to correct an unfair situation; it is by no means “aid” or a “contribution.” Moreover, most of the schemes currently labeled “fair trade” set minimum prices at low levels and remain far from “fair.” While producers’ situations may be slightly improved, it is hard to say the trade is fair.

However, when “fair trade” is covered in Japanese media, the producers—the essential actors—are almost invisible. For example, in the small amount of coverage on fair trade over ten years in the major national dailies (Asahi, Mainichi, Yomiuri), only 3.2% of articles focused on producers. Most reporting is devoted to introducing Japanese companies and products. Many articles also write about fair trade as if it were a form of “aid.” For example, in the context of the cocoa and chocolate industry, 8 of 11 Yomiuri Shimbun articles (2009–2018) that included “fair trade” also contained the word “aid.” Looking across all articles that include the term “fair trade,” many evoke “aid,” “donations,” or “charity.” In the same newspaper, 53% of articles over twenty years (2000–2019) mentioned “aid.” Similar trends were seen in Mainichi Shimbun (46%) and Asahi Shimbun (43%).

Tea plantations, Kenya (Photo: Neil Palmer / Wikimedia ［CC BY-SA 2.0］)

As seen above, it is clear that important words frequently appearing in international reporting are being used in ways that invite significant misunderstanding. In some cases, this seems to stem from nationalism that serves to downplay problems with the behavior of one’s own government or companies in the world. It could also be due to reporters’ own inadequate understanding of global phenomena and systems.

This is not mere armchair theorizing or semantics; it clearly has real-world effects. Misunderstandings that the news produces or reinforces influence public opinion, which in turn becomes an obstacle to changes in the behavior of one’s own government or companies and to effective responses to the challenges the world faces. Increasing attention to the world, and perceiving it more comprehensively and objectively, should be the true role of journalism.

The article “Five misleading words in international reporting (Part 2)” is here.

Writer: Virgil Hawkins