NHK Storm In A British Teacup

[Mulboyne]

[floatl][/floatl]NHK recently broadcast a history program that showed the British flag upside down. Not exactly a major diplomatic incident but the failure of the producer responsible to take appropriate action led to an apology at the British consulate on Wednesday and on air last night...The error was in the June 21 edition of the history program "Sono Toki Rekishi ga Ugoita". A viewer noticed the error in a preview of the show and called the Osaka bureau to inform them. The producer decided it was not worth the time and expense involved in correcting it. The same viewer called NHK again after the show was broadcast unchanged and received an apology, but the producer failed to report the matter to management. The matter came to light after a weekly magazine contacted NHK with questions.

Text and photo from Japan Zone

[GuyJean]

That's really hard to detect.. Doesn't that mistake happen all the time?

NHK recently broadcast a history program that showed the British flag upside down. Not exactly a major diplomatic incident...

Does it have any significance? The US flag hanging certain ways are signals; upside-down is a distress signal..

GJ

[Blah Pete]

Never noticed that there was a difference before. Can't blame people though cause you really never see that flag on the medal stand at the Olympics.



On the other hand some are pretty hard to screw up.
This one was the S. Korea military not the US ala 1992 World Series.

[Mulboyne]

[quote="GuyJean"]That's really hard to detect.. Doesn't that mistake happen all the time? Does it have any significance? The US flag hanging certain ways are signals]

It happens a lot. Also you sometimes see symmetrical Union Jacks which is another mistake and easier to see. An upside down Union Jack has also been a sign of distress and some say it is an insult to the crown which is supposedly still a crime. Personally, I can't get too worked up about it although an upside down flag does "look" wrong to many British even if they couldn't say why.

The usual way to double check is to look at the white border behind the red diagonal cross. The red diagonal is offset so in the top left corner, the wider portion should be above the narrow portion.

[canman]

But good old NHK screws up again. And it involves Britain. For the past two weeks they have been showing Winbledon tennis, and thankfully with the English commentary. I love listneing to Johnny Mac. Anyway tonight is the ladies finals and it should be a great match and the stupid bastards decided not to show it live. Mind you I did just finish watching a great documentary on a country I've never even heard of that is selling dirty bombs to terrorists.
I still never did hear why NHK decided not to offer the world cup games with the English sub-channel. There had to be a reason.

[Greji]

I still never did hear why NHK decided not to offer the world cup games with the English sub-channel. There had to be a reason.

They didn't want any of the real world true comments about the level of Japanese soccer to get out in the face of the unreal hype that had been going on in the media here in Japan!