41–50 of 494 posts
The linked article ends with this: “Why the Japanese media has refused to identify the ‘religious group’ that formed the motive for the killing must remain as speculation at this juncture, though it reflects very poorly on Japan’s status as a democratic nation.” It’s important to note that the Japanese media is not monolithic. It’s true that the major newspapers (Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi, Nikkei, etc.) and the broadc…
The linked article ends with this: “Why the Japanese media has refused to identify the ‘religious group’ that formed the motive for the killing must remain as speculation at this juncture, though it reflects very poorly on Japan’s status as a democratic nation.” It’s important to note that the Japanese media is not monolithic. It’s true that the major newspapers (Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi, Nikkei, etc.) and the broadc…
It was explained to me when I lived in Japan, that while there are many Japanese media companies that exist independently in Japan, they all have to go to one central government body to renew their licenses to exist. They get some leeway but it's it's not much
The kisha clubs [1], which control media access to government officials and the police, are restricted to reporters from major media organizations. The tabloid press frequently complains about those restrictions and use those restrictions as justification for their less savory reporting methods.
The libel and privacy laws are fairly strict [2, 3] and have been tightened in recent years, making publications more hesitant to report negative or personal information about individuals, including politicians. Some religious groups have used those laws to suppress negative reporting; as soon as I noticed on Friday afternoon that the mainstream media weren’t giving the name of the religious group, I wondered if fear of lawsuits was the reason. (I still don’t know.)
Extremist groups have targeted Japanese media, and have sometimes attacked [4] or killed [5] journalists, for reports that the groups didn’t like about the Imperial family or historical matters. This can make journalists hesitant to raise controversial topics.
The major newspapers are published by large conglomerates that have diverse business interests. The weekly magazines have, over the years, reported many examples of stories that were suppressed by their larger competitors because of conflicts of interest. An amusing one that I remember is when a magazine was not allowed to include the term shōgi daoshi—literally, “falling over like shogi pieces”—in their regular advertisement in a daily newspaper; they wanted to use it to describe an accident where people were crushed in and killed in a crowd, but that newspaper ran a major shogi tournament and wouldn’t allow the term shōgi to be used in a negative context. Some weekly magazines that frequently publish reports of salacious scandals about celebrities and politicians refrain from publishing similar reports about well-known writers, because their parent companies depend on work by those writers for other publications.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kisha_club
[2] https://kellywarnerlaw.com/japan-defamation-laws
[3] https://www.omm.com/resources/alerts-and-publications/alerts...
Nobusuke Kishi (Abe's grandfather) has an extremely interesting backstory: > As a self-described "playboy of the Eastern world", Kishi was known during his four years in Manchukuo for his lavish spending amid much drinking, gambling, and womanizing.[34] Kishi spent almost all of his time in Manchukuo's capital, Hsinking (modern Changchun, China) with the exception of monthly trips to Dalian on the world famous Asia E…
"extremely interesting backstory" is definitely one way to describe Nobusuke Kishi's time as the army officer who was in charge of Manchukuo. "Vile history" is the phrase I'd personally use.
He wasn't an army officer. He was a lawyer/bureaucrat in charge of the forced industrialization of Manchukuo after studying the economic systems of places like Wiemar Germany, and was given total authority by the army to run this vertical as he saw fit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was explained to me when I lived in Japan, that while there are many Japanese media companies that exist independently in Japan, they all have to go to one central government body to renew their licenses to exist. They get some leeway but it's it's not much
It's not about "licenses to exist", but access to the press clubs (kisha clubs). Basically, if the government doesn't like what you print/say, you get frozen out the clubs and hence out of all government news. https://freespeechdebate.com/discuss/an-impregnable-fortress...
https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/white-house-press-passes...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"extremely interesting backstory" is definitely one way to describe Nobusuke Kishi's time as the army officer who was in charge of Manchukuo. "Vile history" is the phrase I'd personally use.
Even vile doesn't quite cover the scale of the horror, especially Unit 731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_Manchukuo
The linked article ends with this: “Why the Japanese media has refused to identify the ‘religious group’ that formed the motive for the killing must remain as speculation at this juncture, though it reflects very poorly on Japan’s status as a democratic nation.” It’s important to note that the Japanese media is not monolithic. It’s true that the major newspapers (Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi, Nikkei, etc.) and the broadc…
And that name is?
But it’s also in the submission, literally the first sentence…
The article ends implying the Japanese media is wrong by downplaying and leaving out the name of the church, but when I was reading more on wikipedia about the Unification Church they referenced this article from the media, which I will need to translate but would seem to refute this: https://gendai.ismedia.jp/articles/-/97322 For those who are in Japan is that a good take by the author of the submitted article? Is (…
There even used to be a P2P app called Perfect Dark, known in a... different... name early on, so as to make it 'immune to police prosecution'. Eventually the name changed to what it is, and stories of police working on it did start appearing. That was 2010s.
It is quite striking in the UK and US how mainstream media will be remarkably coy about identifying the cultural background of some criminals while straight off the bat into condemnatory opinion pieces with others who will resonate more as bogeymen with their readers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was explained to me when I lived in Japan, that while there are many Japanese media companies that exist independently in Japan, they all have to go to one central government body to renew their licenses to exist. They get some leeway but it's it's not much
It's not about "licenses to exist", but access to the press clubs (kisha clubs). Basically, if the government doesn't like what you print/say, you get frozen out the clubs and hence out of all government news. https://freespeechdebate.com/discuss/an-impregnable-fortress...