New Japan Hand

This observation from Fast Company's Charles Fishman regarding the appointment, announced yesterday, of Howard Stringer to head Sony:

• Point at which The New York Times' lead story on Sony CEO change mentions that "Sir Howard...does not speak Japanese": 10th sentence.
• Point at which NYT story mentions the iPod, Apple's newly dominant music player: 5th sentence.
• Point at which The Wall Street Journal's lead story on Sony CEO change mentions that "Mr. Stringer isn't Japanese and doesn't speak the language": 11th sentence.
• Point at which WSJ story mentions the iPod, which "has given Sony fits": 5th sentence.

I frankly cannot imagine running a company whose language I did not speak. Can you imagine Ford naming its Japanese division head to run the company, and the media reporting, "the new CEO of Ford does not speak English"?