National interest is in the eye of the beholder. For example, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi traveled to Ethiopia and Ghana last week to offer aid, but also to reinvigorate the African Union's support for reform of the U.N. Security Council, of which Japan still hopes to become a permanent member. Since Security Council membership is an old, maybe dead story, the press was more interested in the possibility that Japan is being diplomatically "outmaneuvered" in Africa by China.
In any case, neither item offered a fraction of the drama and news appeal of Sakie Yokota's trip to Washington, where she lobbied American politicians for sanctions against North Korea. By providing blanket, in-depth coverage of Yokota's Congressional testimony and her meeting with U.S. President George Bush, the media seemed to imply that here was an issue that is very much in Japan's national interest.
And it is in the sense that the abduction of Japanese nationals by North Korean spies, beyond being a serious international crime, remains an obstacle to peaceful coexistence among the countries of northeast Asia. But the press is more interested in melodrama than policy and, at any rate, the amount of coverage Yokota's trip received was disproportionate to its likely effects.