Nichi Bei Times Shuts Down: Blamed on the Internet, Lack of Community

By Ernie | Friday, August 21, 2009 | 4 Comments

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The SF Chronicle reports that The Nichi Bei Times, Northern California’s oldest Japanese American community newspaper will be shut down on September 10th. While the official reasoning for the paper shutting down is blamed on the gradual move from news papers to websites, a commenter named washgrad posted his reasoning on why the Nichi Bei Times has lost readership and thus ad revenue, and I’m kind of inclined to agree: “There is no more ‘community’ Jtown news so now everything is a ‘how I see it as a Japanese American.’ News flash: other Japanese Americans don’t care! We already know what how you see the world, so stop telling us what we already know … realize that death, suburbanization and intermarriage have changed the game.”

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Ed 37 pts

Unfortunately, many more ethnicities will follow suit. Not just Asian. The US is a just a big cultural vacuum, we are too stupid and caught up in our own selfish pursuits to care and just accept it. What's worse is we as westerners try to assimilate our culture into other parts of the world, wrapped in a nice, shiny package. I hate going to another country and seeing Starbucks and McDonald's all over the place.

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star950MT

It is very unfortunate to see the oldest Japanese American in North Cal going away forever, though I have to agree with washgradu00e2u0080u0099s comments in few points.

Japanese Americans are the one of the most well assimilated and integrated Asian American ethnic groups, and yes most of the younger generations do not speak Japanese anymore. And if the Nich Bei Times wants to increase readers among the younger generations, having more articles in Japanese is a wrong way to go.

But who are really reading Japanese language newspapers in the Bay Area now? They are not the younger generations of Japanese Americans, because most of the contents are in Japanese. They are not older generations of Japanese Americans who still understand Japanese either. They are Japanese-Japanese people who came here to study and/or work and their families, seeking for local info and Japanese news back home in u00e2u0080u009cJAPANESEu00e2u0080u009d (not in English because most of them are new to the US).

If the NBT wants to attract younger generations of Japanese Americans, it should expand the English section with more local voices. In any case, it needs to change its business model to increase circulations.

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