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This blog has been written to publicly debunk the plethora of lies that Jake Adelstein has told in his book Tokyo Vice, which is essentially a fake memoir. In addition to smearing and misrepresenting Japan on a variety of counts, Adelstein has also freely libeled a variety of real businesses and people in Japan as well. As such it is time set the record straight and tell the real story of Jake “the fake” Adelstein.
As a long-term Japan resident, I found Adelstein’s “autobiographical novel” Tokyo Vice, to be moderately interesting at times with various tidbits on Japan in it. At the same time, it has some serious shortcomings. The writing and some storytelling was fair and B level at best, and poor in some places. Moreover, the explanation of the Japan underworld and places like Ropongi and Kabukicho was cursory, lacked real depth and insight and had wrong information in some cases. Entire books could be written about these places, but the information in TV was not much more than warmed over stories collected from people in bars and news clippings. Nicknames are used excessively making it difficult to keep track of characters, and the timeline jumps around and can be hard to follow at times.
As a real-life nonfiction memoir, however, there are numerous egregious problems with this book, which includes the names of real businesses and people in Tokyo being involved in Adelstein’s imaginary stories whereby he inserts himself into the action around often real events that happened (a.k.a. gonzo journalism). Moreover, Adelstein has consistently asserted that these tall tales are real in Tokyo Vice, which a close review of the facts will show is nothing more than a “fake memoir.”
Like a magician who can amaze people when they believe what he tells them (e.g., “I’m putting the coin here.”) or the phony Navy Seal who garners respect and admiration by stealing valor, amazement goes away quickly when people are told where the coin really is or that the person is a phony. In Jake Adelstein’s case, he is a “phony Yomiuri organized crime reporter” and not a yakuza expert based on his duties during 12 years at the Yomiuri.
Adelstein claims that a legendary journalist at the Yomiuri, Ansei Inoue, gave him eight rules for being a good reporter, “1. Don’t ever burn your sources, 2. Finish a story as soon as possible, 3. Never believe anyone. People lie, police lie, even your fellow reporters lie. Assume that you are being lied to, and proceed with caution. 4. Take any information you can get, 5. Remember and persist, 6. Triangulate your stories, If you can verify information from three different sources, odds are good that the information is good. 7. Write everything in a reverse pyramid, 8. Never put your personal opinions into a story.
Adelstein is clearly clueless about the actual rule number one in journalism, which is you must have “integrity.” This is the prime directive of journalism. Without this nothing a journalist ever writes can be believed and the person will never be taken seriously. Prior to this blog, Adelstein has already been called out for questionable facts and in some cases lying by other journalists and news organizations.
I included the full explanation of rule three as it appeared in the book because this is exactly I what I want readers of Tokyo Vice to do. Do not just assume that Adelstein is a credible journalist and is telling you the truth. Judge for yourself whether what he is saying is even possible let alone likely or probable, and look for the coin location by reading the actual articles related to his alleged adventures.
With rule six, “Triangulate your stories,” just look at Tokyo Vice’s bibliography–there is none–and decide for yourself how well Adelestien has verified and referenced his claims. Finally, there is number eight, “Never put your personal opinions into a story.” Nearly everything Adelstein writes, particularly the myriad of articles he has published in recent years, includes his personal opinions, which is usually in some form of a self-righteous, holier-than-thou proclamations or gotcha claims towards the end. Thus, by his own definition, Adelstein is not a “good reporter.”
Adelstein is very much like any of the hundreds of phony Navy Seals you see on the Internet today and particularly the type that was in the Navy but never a Seal. Such person is not content to take pride in his service as it was, which was usually mundane and uneventful. Rather, this person has some kind of psychological need (narcissism, inferiority complex, pathology, etc.) to create stories of combat, heroism, medals, honor, etc. to impress other people.
The first couple of exaggerations bring in respect and adoration, which have a drug-like effect. Wanting more of this good feeling, the person gradually escalates the stories and before long this person has created an entire imaginary world which he presents as real with large numbers of people accepting the lies as truth. This is until the phony seal gets busted and exposed or in Adelstein’s case the phony Yomiuri organized crime reporter is exposed. Adelstein can cover organized crime as a freelancer just like any person can set up their own martial arts/combat training classes, but being an actual Seal or actual Yomiuri reporter in charge of covering organized crime is a completely different story.
Having worked for the Yomiuri Adelstein knows enough about Japan topics and the newspaper business that he can spin stories that most outsiders are unable to detect as false, but when anyone with good knowledge of Japan and journalism looks at it, like a real sailor noticing the inconsistencies, the phony Seal is easily spotted.
Adelstein employs one of the most common techniques of deception, which is embedding his lies in among a plethora of things that actually happened. Thus, his lies take on an air of credibility; moreover, it becomes difficult to identify the lies and separate them from the truths they are embedded with.
Upon reading TV carefully, Adelstein makes lots of little and some big mistakes as he spins his tall tales. Just read Adelstein’s book with an objective view, not assuming that what he is saying is actually true, and much of the contents will not make sense. There are also plenty of contradictions, but most people do not really read the book or at least not carefully and then just take Adelstein’s word on everything.
With Jake “the Fake” Adelstein, believe nothing, check everything!
