The relationship between the government and the press in Japan has, during the past 50 years, been a volatile one of give and take: The government gives the press what it wants it to know, and the press gladly takes it. But this has not always been the case.
Consider a series of incidents that took place in August 1918.
The government of Prime Minister Masatake Terauchi had sent some 70,000 troops to northern Manchuria and Siberia in order to reverse the fortunes of the Bolsheviks and seize control of the Trans-Siberian Railway for Japan.