Have the foreign media got it in for Japan? Do they unduly focus on, and sensationalize, Fukushima radiation leaks, alleged racial intolerance and the self-aggrandizing policy pronouncements of the reborn Liberal Democratic Party? Worse still, are non-Japanese journalists prejudicing perceptions of Japan in the wider world, further eroding the nation's global significance?
Though right-wing Japanese apologists have long identified, in the words of Michael Cucek, research associate with the MIT Center for International Studies, "the existence of an international cabal of anti-Japanese media types," some ardent foreign-born Japan residents are also defending their adopted home from "Japan-hating" media.
Since the tragedy of March 2011, when the controversy over the Japanese government's response to the Fukushima nuclear crisis gave journalists grist to ramp up their alleged anti-Japanese prejudice, the pro-Japaners have employed an effective counter-attack strategy: Banded behind a small but deafening band of bloggers, YouTubers and citizen journalists of sorts, this informal alliance generate legion online comments, blog posts and video channel chat-fests that systematically seek to discredit media they say are bent on fear-mongering about the country. In this highly polarized and fractious world, you are either with Japan or against it.