Least relevant front-page headline ever?

As of this morning, this is what I see as the bottom headline of asahi.com’s top stories:

ペイリン氏、娘の元婚約者と応酬 「うそつき」「売名」(03:03)

Palin arguing with daughter’s ex-fiance: “Liar,” “Self-promoter”

 I just don’t see this story as worthy of the Asahi’s status as the 2nd most read newspaper nationwide and the paper of record for the center-left elites. I mean, it’s true that some of Tokyo Governor Ishihara’s more controvertial statements get coverage in Western media, but how in the world does this completely inconsequential Jerry Springer segment matter to any but the readers of Josei Seven, Japan’s equivalent of the National Enquirer?

UPDATE: Well, I guess if the New York Times is sinking to that level, the Asahi was just following suit.

10 thoughts on “Least relevant front-page headline ever?”

  1. The Asahi and NYT team up on the Japan version of the “International Herald Tribune”. In for a penny, in for a pound.

    I’m not sure that the NYT is sinking so much as strategically trying to humiliate Palin to put an end to her career. I’m not sure if this is unwise – the American public has swayed widely in the last two months and if the economy is still junk in 2011, President Palin in 2012 could be more than just a NYT nightmare.

  2. You’re mixing your demographics. The headlines of the women’s weeklies almost never include foreign news (from what I’ve noticed).

    The crowd that follows politics in Japan, but decided that US politics was far more interesting last year is still familiar with Palin’s name, and is aware she’s trying to ruin the world in 2012.

    It may be that journalists in Japan may not have free reign to report on this kind of high profile family feuding for a Japanese politician, so Asahi is putting it on the home page. It may be that they want to bait the shukanshi crowd with a really fluffy article (hey, if you want news on Nikko or Ichiro, there are other rags…).

  3. I subscribe to IHT actually (and pick up both morning and evening editions of Nikkei and occasionally Asahi). Mrs. Adamu is the one who reads IHT, but for all my braying about how the Japanese media needs better online services we are both suckers for reading dead-tree papers.

    If this is the direction the country is moving in, someone else will just step in to replace Palin as the theocratic candidate.

  4. I read morning and evening editions of Japan’s top 5 papers for 2 months one time and kept them all in my closet until the end. It was a prodigious sight and I am afraid that one day the trees will take revenge.

    “If this is the direction the country is moving in, someone else will just step in to replace Palin as the theocratic candidate.”

    And in the direction the Republican Party is moving, she might just wind up being the SANE candidate in the primary.

  5. From what I’ve been reading both the national and Alaska GOP organizations are getting fed up with both Palin’s incompetence and crazy family life, so I don’t think there’s any serious worry about her being a national candidate again.

  6. These outbursts make one thing clear – exorbitent, ruinous shopping sprees at her party’s expense are the only thing that keeps Sarah Palin from making vicious public outbursts (oh wait even that doesnt work sometimes)

  7. Even if we don’t see her again (fingers crossed) I think that she will come to fill a Dan Quayle-like place in America’s political mythos.

    In any case, if she gets canned from the party, she will probably find a home on the radio.

  8. For some reason I always read her name in Japanese as ペンギン氏 on first glance, and end up doing double-takes at headlines.

  9. It’s just your subconscious anti-Alaskan racism that makes you think they have a penguin for a governor.

  10. Its just this sort of easy joke-cracking that makes Palin so pernicious! She’s like that song “Give you hell” the Aflac duck and all the other crap that is intentionally annoying just to stick in your head.

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