<figure id="attachment_362545" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1024px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-362545"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="559304ea"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/03/054e26bf72a05d4c34f6a17410f21988.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-362545" class="wp-caption-text">Shohei Otani&#8217;s &#8220;wedding press conference&#8221; was surrounded by many reporters, including local media. &#8230;&#8230;</figcaption></figure>
The announcement of the marriage of Shohei Otani, a big leaguer, and his wedding press conference blew away both the political ethics hearing and the Kabukicho affair of a female LDP lawmaker.
 The LDP is a political party that has been in power for decades.
The timing was so destructive that there was no conspiracy theory that Shohei Otani was doing it to help the LDP.
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It was not only other news that Otani blew up.
It was the deterioration of the supposedly talented reporters and the way the TV program was made, which had to rely on Showa-esque production techniques.
First, let&#8217;s talk about the deterioration of the reporters.
 But the only thing that left a lasting impression on me was the poor coordination of the so-called &#8220;watchdog&#8221; reporters who asked questions at the wedding press conference, and the lukewarmness of their questioning,&#8221; said a former sports newspaper reporter.
A former sports desk clerk for a sports newspaper said as much.
 While the media were busy competing with each other to distribute the same story, the reporters&#8217; ability to ask questions must have deteriorated,&#8221; he adds sarcastically.
He adds sarcastically, &#8220;I think the press has lost the ability to ask questions.
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At the beginning of the TBS radio program &#8220;Takeo Morimoto Standby! the anchor Morimoto said
 Morimoto said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t ask him what he wants me to ask him. I have no idea what kind of person he is, whether he has a job or not, or what kind of outline he has.
I have no idea what kind of person he is, whether he has a job or not, or what kind of outline he has.
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="In a magazine interview, he revealed neither his age nor his dating history..."></div>
I know [Otani] doesn&#8217;t want to go into details, but [the question] didn&#8217;t come up, and that was the end of it.&#8221;
He complained that the questions were too perfunctory.
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In fact, without any tenacity, it was as if he threw in a mountain of questions from a safe zone where he did not want his opponents to dislike him. The sports newspaper and former sports department desk clerk mentioned above continues to take back the story.
 The first question was about the date of his marriage and his wife&#8217;s personality. Otani answered, &#8216;She is an ordinary person. This is the point where we can pick up the story. The reporter could have asked, &#8220;How did an ordinary person become acquainted with you, Otani? But the reporter deflected the question by asking, &#8220;How long have you known each other? And even though Otani revealed valuable information, saying, &#8220;About three or four years ago,&#8221; the reporter did not ask about the secret of how he had not been exposed at all.
 Not only that, but in the next question, he asks, &#8220;Did it affect your decision on FA? In a press conference, you think about the questions and anticipate the flow to some extent, but in the end, you have to be flexible and respond accordingly. What do you put over the other person&#8217;s answer, or what do you draw out from the other person&#8217;s answer? I wasn&#8217;t able to do that.&#8221;
When Otani answered that they had met in a &#8220;short span of time,&#8221; he did not ask an additional question, &#8220;Where is the place? Or even his approximate age (older? Younger?). He did not even confirm his approximate age (older or younger?). The first rule of interviewing is lacking.
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Whether Otani answers or not is another matter, but the reporter is given the opportunity to ask questions. They are not making the most of it.
In fact, in the &#8220;Number&#8221; web interview, he revealed his age and talked about what kind of dates he had, so it was not a question about his age. It was an ordinary mistake by the reporter on the scene.
The fact that the TV program&#8217;s old-fashioned stunt was so obvious was also an achievement &#8220;revealed&#8221; by the news of Otani&#8217;s marriage.
 The news that Ohtani announced on Instagram was all the information we had. I couldn&#8217;t use the scene of the game because of my contract. Even if we could, we would have to pay for it. The only way the TV program could use the information was to record the streets.
This is an old-fashioned method of picking up the voice of the town. The cameraman and director go out into the streets, talk to people on the street, and conduct impromptu interviews, a method that has no new wisdom or ingenuity. The director of the information program mentioned above continued, &#8220;I took a quick look at the next day&#8217;s information program.
 I took a quick look at the next day&#8217;s information program, and for the first time in a long time, it was full of street recordings. Moreover, all of the affiliate stations in Japan were participating in the program. In short, it was common for directors everywhere to have that level of thinking.
 The stations that had footage from junior high school, high school, and the Nichi-Ham era, other than games, would scrape together such past material, but the rest had to be muddied by &#8220;congratulatory comments&#8221; from the commentators.
The fate of television is such that nothing is possible without images. This is the reason why information programs in recent years have made heavy use of panels instead of images.
Ohtani&#8217;s press conference was shown over and over again as news footage. However, the content was poor and not spectacular each time it was shown over and over again.
It was a press conference that simply revealed the &#8220;poor questioning skills&#8221; of the reporters.

 After working as a desk clerk in the culture department of an evening newspaper, an editorial staff member at a publishing company, and a copywriter, Watabe became a freelance entertainment writer. He has covered all aspects of the entertainment industry, including movies, theater, acting, and music. He also works undercover as a ghostwriter for celebrity books.

 Watabe Wataru

 Kyodo News

 The "marriage press conference" of Major Leaguer Shohei Ohtani shocked not only Japan and the U.S. but also the world. ...

Shohei Ohtani’s Marriage Press Conference Exposes Decline in Reporting Journalists’ Questioning Skills

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