Media Personalities of the Year: Koichi Tanaka and Tama-chan
Japan's salaryman Nobel prizewinner received more media coverage than any other single Japanese person this year. When asked by a group of curious Swedish reporters why, the female TV Asahi announcer assigned to stalk the scientist while he was in Stockholm earlier this month replied, "because he is not an extraordinary man."
The dissonance at work here -- ordinary guy does something extraordinary -- is a favorite media theme. It informs the same kind of fascination we have for the nice neighbor who turns out to be a serial killer.