Tohoku Earthquake Coverage

Above, the earthquake-generated tsunami about to engulf homes in Natori, Miyagi Prefecture.

Tomorrow night (L.A. time) will mark one week since the Tohoku Earthquake and tsunami struck northeastern Japan.

If one wants to read about the people of Japan and the rescue efforts currently underway, all they will mostly find in the U.S. media is hysterical reporting on the damaged Japanese nuclear reactors. Of course, those are important stories. But the U.S. media appears to be concentrating on that instead of the plight of the Japanese people. And much of the reporting is erroneous.

Even the usually-reliable FoxNews seems to be concentrating on the damaged nuclear power plants.

I had better luck in finding stories on the people and rescue efforts from the Japanese news outlets NHK and Kyodo News along with the Japanese newspaper, The Daily Yomiuri.

I lost what little faith I had in the American news media during the 2008 election campaign with its blatant biased reporting. So this doesn't really surprise me all that much.

At least I learned something tonight:

The Japanese name for the March 11 earthquake is "Tohoku-Chiho Taiheiyo-Oki." Roughly translated, it means, "Pacific offshore Tohoku region." Oddly, I found this information from the Los Angeles Times' website. The USGS is dubbing it the Tohoku Earthquake, a shortened version of the Japanese name. I've been using "Tohoku Earthquake" even before learning of the USGS naming. It makes perfect sense, since the Tohoku region was the hardest hit.