Being amateurish is what makes SMAP such pros

| Oct 16, 2011

Being amateurish is what makes SMAP such pros

by Philip Brasor

NHK’s “The Professional” profiles, through interviews and situational coverage, people who are notable for their dedication to some craft or business vision. The series grew out of “Project X,” the very popular documentary series about Japan’s industrial breakthroughs of the past, and is meant ...

Television's skewed version of poverty

| Oct 9, 2011

Television's skewed version of poverty

by Philip Brasor

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrations currently taking place in New York continue to garner more and more attention from the American media, which mostly ignored the movement when it began several weeks ago. Now everybody in America who reads a newspaper or watches TV ...

Press miss the point at antinuke demo

| Oct 2, 2011

Press miss the point at antinuke demo

by Philip Brasor

Three weeks after Japan’s biggest antinuclear demonstration, there is still some dispute over how many people actually attended. The organizers estimate 60,000 and the police say about 30,000. Except for the Yomiuri and Sankei newspapers, which accept the police figure, the mainstream vernacular media ...

| Sep 25, 2011

Welfare system not faring well

by Philip Brasor

Ten years ago, in her book “Nickel and Dimed,” Barbara Ehrenreich chronicled her own experience as a subsistence-level American wage-earner during a period of relative economic vigor. She found a whole class of workers who lived — and would always live — from paycheck ...

Political elite can't stand outsiders

| Sep 18, 2011

Political elite can't stand outsiders

by Philip Brasor

Yoshio Hachiro’s stint as the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry in the new Yoshihiko Noda administration was not the briefest cabinet assignment on record, but it was certainly one of the most controversial. News outlets reported that it was “public outrage” over two ...

| Aug 14, 2011

Media coverage often 'the last push' to suicide

by Philip Brasor

In May, 24-year-old TV personality Miyu Uehara was pronounced dead shortly after a friend found her hanging from a door in her Tokyo apartment. Uehara’s death was called an “apparent suicide” by the media, and while the terminology was cautious the reporting itself took ...

Fabricated public opinion is the norm

| Aug 7, 2011

Fabricated public opinion is the norm

by Philip Brasor

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s energy agency recently contracted with an outside advertising company to monitor “inaccurate” online information regarding nuclear energy. In response, the media cried “censorship,” but as pointed out in last week’s issue of Aera, the agency has employed ...