Readers in Council,
The Japan Times,
5-4, Shibaura 4-chome,
Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0023
The primary piece of information in a news story about the size of the economy ought to be the estimated value of the Gross Domestic Product. I understand that it is not a straightforward and simple calculation, because economic and financial conditions are constantly in flux. But I have learned from stories in the past that this is precisely the information typically lacking from Japan Times news about the Japanese GDP. It occurred again in the August 17, 2010 article “China edges Japan as No. 2 economy.” The printed story concentrates on reports of comparable percentages of quarterly growth measured and estimated, this financial quarter and the previous financial quarter against this fiscal year and the previous fiscal year in both countries. The closest we get to the important kernel of information comes very belatedly in the sixteenth paragraph where we learn that “Japan’s nominal GDP ... was worth $1.286 trillion in the April-June quarter compared with $1.335 trillion for China.” And even then it is not news of the total annual GDP but a quarterly report, which may or may not mean that China’s economy is now number 2 in the world. We have to do the math ourselves to figure that Japan’s total economy is currently somewhere in the area of $5.15 trillion. Why doesn’t the paper tell us that outright? It’s very annoying - not that I have to do the calculation myself, but that the paper consistently ignores or sidesteps the single most important piece of information in this regard.