Read on Twitter
What a @jbrcpod interview with @yurikageyama would have looked like and why it won't happen. Gif of a river to calm you before a pretty long THREAD:
We have long followed and enjoyed Yuri Kageyama's reporting for the AP, and we say this with the utmost respect for her work. She's clearly a talented and prolific journalist. We even asked her to come on the show once. More on that later.
She tweeted the following tweet. https://twitter.com/yurikageyama/status/1343356046681595904?s=19 Reading the comments, her followers (and beyond) mainly took issue with the following points: Use of 'gaijin', general lack of empathy, and belittling people's options by dismissing them as 'ranting'. Hard ratioed.
If we had a show this week, we'd be all over this. Partly because, she's right! Other countries have similar policies, and as @oliverjia1014 said: "a country has every right to put its citizens before anyone else", and it's reasonable to suspend new visas during a pandemic. But:
We suspect people are disappointed in this tweet partially because the foreign community knows that these kind of views (and worse) are rampant, but hoped that somebody they previously saw as an ally didn't espouse them. Plus nobody likes being called entitled 
But, we think it's one thing to think these things, it's another to be wilfully inflammatory. "Gaijin" is not a racist word, but it's sometimes used by mean-spirited people instead of other 'politer' words, and that's why some find it objectionable.
We're bored of the "gaijin" word debate, but she was writing English and she should have said "non-Japanese" as her employer's style book would have encouraged. That red rag aside, if we had a chance to interview @yurikageyama on the show, there are five questions we'd ask...
1) What was she referring to when she mentioned the "rants" around Japan's entry restrictions against foreigners? Was she talking about tourists upset that they can't travel to Japan? Or exchange students, work exchange or employment visa holders, looking to immigrate?
It's so important to make a clean distinction here. "Foreigners" means nothing. The question is one of home, livelihood, and support network. There is a killer virus about, so we should generally stay put. But, which town we call our home isn't linked to our passport.
2) As we discussed with @tuttiq here ( http://jbrc.link/60 ) sometimes in stories like this there is a nugget of truth, that gets caught up in hyperbole, misinformation, and prejudice. Does she think the 'rants' she is responding to mischaracterise the reality of the situation?
3) Is she aware of the background of the current criticism of the entry restrictions and how they're informed by people's reactions to the long-standing, harmful, and hypocritical policy of applying different restrictions to non-Japanese visa and permanent residency holders?
Previously, a Japanese person could return from an infected area with reasonable restrictions and a non-Japanese person couldn't return from the same area at all. This was a unique policy among developed nations, and widely criticised. This context is relevant.
4) Has she followed any of @jt_mag_os's excellent reporting about the above, plus how it affected non-Japanese people with families, businesses, rent, and taxes in Japan? If not, she could hear Magdalena discuss that reporting at length here: http://jbrc.link/42
5) What was she referring to when she talked about the similar or worse restrictions in other countries? What does she feel about how those restrictions affect her and the people she cares about? Some countries have been more empathetic than others, does she disapprove of those?
This debate is clearly more than just a discussion on entry restrictions—it goes to the heart of what it means to commit yourself to living in another country to your birth country, and the risks associated with it. The fact it's turned into a hot mess on twitter is a shame.
Blocking people who disagree with you on Twitter is fine, but blocking them because you've upset them and they're telling you so is another thing. On the other hand, the tendency to loop somebody's employer in the moment they see something they wrote they don't like is also mad.
Unfortunately, despite this being an important debate, that should one day be done properly, we will never be able to ask these questions for the following three reasons...
1) She blocked @BobbyJudo for expressing the exact things stated above, which you can see for yourself here: https://twitter.com/BobbyJudo/status/1343387965372784641?s=19
2) The last time we asked her on the show she declined because as a representative of the AP, she wasn't allowed to express opinions on any public platforms... 
3) We're taking a break from posting episodes and nonsense on here for a short while. See you in 2021 for more world-class river cruise reporting. Thank you for all your support. We love you. 
