Public remains ignorant of the hazards associated with smoking
“Secondhand smoke” describes the fumes in the air that result from someone smoking tobacco. “Sidestream smoke” (fukuryūen) comes off the tip of the cigarette itself rather than out of the mouth of the person smoking it. Since sidestream smoke is estimated to make up ...
Should the elderly be stopped from driving?
On June 10, a car crashed into a supermarket in Shibukawa, Gunma Prefecture, injuring 14 people. At first the incident sounded like yet another elderly person losing control of a vehicle and causing destruction, but then it transpires that the driver was a 55-year-old ...
Undocumented workers in a constant state of uncertainty
People who live in a state of daily desperation sometimes react to their circumstances with violence against others or themselves and, while such actions are a manifestation of frustration, they can also alert the larger world to that frustration, even if it wasn't intended. ...
Market forces in Japan failing to tackle growing plastics problem
Last month, news outlets all over the world reported on the discovery of a plastic shopping bag at the bottom of the Mariana Trench near the Philippines, the deepest point in the Earth’s oceans. The discovery was made by a group of Japanese researchers ...
Commenting on the debate over hate speech on government websites
On May 2, the Cabinet Office removed the posts on its Government Monitor System (GMS) website, a place where citizens offered comments on government policy. The system was established in 1962 to solicit opinions from the public about government policy, but until 2012 it ...
Japan's courts are being asked to define the role of the SDF
As discussed in Media Mix last week, news organizations are on the lookout for signs of whether the country’s Self-Defense Forces are becoming politically active. There have been indications the SDF wants to be the conventional military that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has ...
Lawmaker Hiroyuki Konishi's encounter with an irate SDF officer stirs debate on military
On April 16, opposition lawmaker Hiroyuki Konishi was walking by the Upper House members’ office building in Tokyo when he encountered a man jogging. The man recognized Konishi and started talking to him. His manner soon turned belligerent. An officer in the Self-Defense Forces, ...
Japan is struggling to deal with the foreign tourism boom
With the population shrinking and the government leery of allowing more immigrants into the country, foreign tourism has become an effective economic stimulus. In fact, its success has exceeded anyone’s wildest dreams. More than 28 million tourists from abroad visited Japan last year, and ...
Fukuda scandal highlights how Japan's news outlets take advantage of their female employees
For the past two weeks, media outlets in Japan have been interrogating themselves over the revelation that female reporters are exposed to sexual harassment due to the nature of their work. When weekly magazine Shukan Shincho published a story alleging that Administrative Vice Finance ...
Could jealousy link the Financial Ministry scandals together?
Although not directly related, the allegation that former Administrative Vice Minister Junichi Fukuda was a sexual harasser was initially reported as a sideshow to the ongoing Moritomo Gakuen influence scandal that is dogging both Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Finance Ministry. Fukuda was ...
Japan struggles to fashion casino guidelines that satisfy the public
On April 3, the ruling coalition adopted a plan for integrated resorts featuring casino gambling that it will submit for Diet approval during the current session, although some media organizations think that won't happen. The public still isn't comfortable with the idea of casinos ...
In Japan no one wants to talk about sex education
The English "penis" — which rhymes with "Venice" in katakana — is the preferred technical term when discussing male genitalia in Japan, but even that seems to be taboo in broadcast situations.
