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COMMENTARY / World
Sep 15, 2011

Will the real Dick Cheney please stand up?

He's been called Darth Vader, feared or derided as a trigger-happy, torture-loving puppet master who called the shots over the eight years of the George W. Bush presidency. And now, with the publication of his memoir, "In My Time," Dick Cheney has once again grabbed the media spotlight. But what about...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 7, 2011

Norway's horrors betray a bigoted ignorance of nationality's meaning

First of two parts
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 31, 2011

Nadeshiko Japan show that a relaxed approach gets the best results

The national women's soccer team that just won the FIFA World Cup in Germany is called Nadeshiko Japan. "Nadeshiko" is the name of a flower, but it also represents a certain ideal of Japanese femininity that's demure, quiet and accommodating to men; or, at least, it used to be. Japan's victory over the...
JAPAN
Jul 30, 2011

Symposium fiasco forces reclusive NISA chief to surface

After being harshly criticized for failing to appear before the media to explain an attempt to manipulate a 2007 "pluthermal" symposium, Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency Director General Nobuaki Terasaka held a hastily arranged news conference Friday night.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 19, 2011

Murdoch's malign empire

The resignation of two key lieutenants of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his own full-page signed apology in British newspapers — "We are sorry for the widespread wrongdoing that occurred" — is clearly a desperate attempt to save his News Corporation group from being incinerated in the firestorm...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 26, 2011

Game changer as advertisers take a sporting chance

Earlier this month, teen golf sensation Ryo Ishikawa was driving his Audi when he was stopped by police and told that his international driver's license, obtained in the United States, was not valid in Japan. It was an innocent faux pas, but Ishikawa was forced to apologize profusely through the media...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
May 31, 2011

The edified and TEDified in Japan

On May 21, Tokyo's third annual TEDx event was held at Miraikan (the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation) in Odaiba. Though officially closed until June 11 due to the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, Miraikan hosted 300 guests to this year's event: TEDxTokyo 2011: Enter the Unknown.
BUSINESS
May 19, 2011

Asahi kicks off news pay service

The Asahi Shimbun Co. launched a digital newspaper Wednesday, aiming to find a profitable balance between old and new media.
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
May 18, 2011

Japan, the Twitter nation

According to Twitter's official blog (blog.twitter.com), when the clock stuck midnight last New Year's Eve, Japanese Twitter users went crazy, recording 6,939 tweets per second—a new record at the time. In fact, globally 14 percent of all tweets are in Japanese—second only to English, with 50 percent—which...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 17, 2011

Tweets fuel drive to aid stricken north

Marriott Hotel, Ginza, Tokyo. On a chilly March morning less than a week after the earthquake and tsunami, a group of almost 60 people were brought together through Twitter. The purpose of this 7:50 a.m. hotel-front gathering was to collect donated goods to be taken up north to areas devastated by the...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 29, 2011

Sake fights fallout of Japan's triple disaster

After surviving the double disaster of the magnitude 9 earthquake and towering tsunami that damaged more than 100 sake breweries in northeastern Japan on March 11, sake producers in Tohoku thought that the situation could hardly get worse. But when the media reported that the stricken reactors at Fukushima's...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Mar 28, 2011

Weeklies getting the gavel for targeting public figures

Fear is mounting within Japanese journalism circles, especially among publishers of popular weekly magazines, that their reporting may be severely constrained by the recent tendency of courts to award large compensation claims to plaintiffs in libel suits.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 20, 2011

Black ink, red blood

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE PRESS NETWORKS OF EAST ASIA, 1918-1945, by Peter O'Connor. Global Oriental, 2010, 381 pp., £61 (hardcover) In the pre- and early war years, the big three newspapers at the center of the networks in Japan were The Japan Times, Japan Advertiser and the Japan Chronicle.
Reader Mail
Mar 6, 2011

Blurry separation of generations

The March 2 Kyodo article " 'Kawaii' culture taking hold in U.K." gives an an interesting contrast of the differences in the perception of "kawaii" (cute) between the United Kingdom and Japan. But I'm surprised that the writer didn't look beyond street pop culture to examine publishing.
Japan Times
Features
Feb 27, 2011

Nationalism and its discontents

In this wide-ranging feature following a recent visit to Chengdu, China, Jeff Kingston examines Sino-Japanese relations and challenges facing the government in Beijing
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 27, 2011

Skipping the ads gets harder as shows become infomercials

In the late 1990s, I did piece work for a public relations company, translating achievement reports into English for its non-Japanese clients. The reports outlined how and where the company had secured mentions of its clients' products in various media, and included equivalent advertising value amounts...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 6, 2011

There be all kinds of monsters among us

An old saying goes "Issun no mushi ni mo gobu no tamashi" (even a one-inch worm has a half-inch soul); i.e., even the most humble and powerless creature can put up with only so much before turning on its tormentor.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 23, 2011

The countdown: six months and a day till TV goes digital

Quick: what happened in Japan on Sept. 10, 1960? A few people might recall that was the day Japan commenced color TV broadcasting. At the startup, color programs were few in number, but consumers still had four years and one month to buy a color set before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Jan 19, 2011

Japanese Web outlook and predictions for 2011

Last year saw many changes for Japanese Internet users as people began to shift from Japanese social networks to international ones, and from regular cellphones to smart phones. The international influence was felt in other web-based areas too. So what can we expect for 2011?
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2011

Film 'Peepli live' outstanding as a spotlight on shortcomings

HONG KONG — One of the hot topics among India's chattering classes is when their country will surpass China and become the fastest growing country in the world.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 9, 2011

Cheater exposed by tweeting ex

The micro-blogging service Twitter is an effective PR instrument, but one fraught with risk for celebrities who want to juice their notoriety by connecting directly and on their own terms with the public. Forgoing the filtering function of publicists, they may endear themselves to fans even more powerfully;...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 24, 2010

Meet some famous Japanese ghosts of publishing

We live in interesting times. Because of the Internet, old familiar media formats are breaking down or going through changes. More and more printed word publications are going out of business or finding new life online. The old LP/album format is essentially an anachronism in an iPod-centered universe....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 11, 2010

Japan, EU encouraged to share consumer safety info, knowhow

Protecting the safety and interests of consumers is essential in an age of rapid globalization, and both Japan and the European Union could benefit from exchanging practical information and experiences, journalists and experts agreed during a recent conference.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 25, 2010

China and India exposed

BERKELEY, Calif. — Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's forthcoming trip to India, following hard on the heels of President Barack Obama's recent visit, will provide another opportunity for the media to gush about the growing global economic clout of China and India. We can be sure that the soft underbellies...
JAPAN / Media
Nov 7, 2010

Japanese films at TIFF fail to thrill, with some notable exceptions

The Tokyo International Film Festival tries to accommodate the many critics, journalists and other freeloaders who want to see and report on its films, while squeezing as many paying customers into its screenings as possible. So folks in the former group are encouraged to attend special media-only screenings...
CULTURE / Music
Nov 5, 2010

Japan Music Week sets lofty goals for the live scene

With plans for a weeklong series of shows featuring 500 artists from 40 countries performing in 50 venues — and a target of 20,000 attendees — it's clear from the get-go that Jon Lynch has ambitious plans for Japan Music Week. But there are still moments when he catches you out.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 31, 2010

Japan's Afghanistan news blackout in the spotlight

Veteran freelance journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka was finally freed last month by kidnappers after five months of captivity in Afghanistan. Though the Japanese media reported the kidnapping when it happened last April, and then Tsuneoka's release on Sept. 6, any details about his confinement or what he was...
EDITORIALS
Oct 16, 2010

NHK reporter crosses the line

Public broadcaster NHK announced Oct. 8 that a reporter in its news department's sports section warned a Japan Sumo Association official that the Metropolitan Police Department would conduct raids on sumo stables to search for evidence indicating that sumo wrestlers had gambled on professional baseball...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Sep 22, 2010

Japan iPad competitor offers up some luv

While this columnist is admittedly upset that Mouse Computer named their latest product after my old college dorm room without attribution, it's certainly very exciting to see an Android-based competitor for Apple's "revolutionary" iPad coming out of Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / THE TROUBLE AT TOYOTA
Sep 3, 2010

Driver error findings valid: expert

The U.S. auto safety regulator's recent interim report that found driver error to be the probable cause of most of the sudden acceleration accidents it probed involving Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles confirms the warnings of an American psychologist and ergonomist that motorists failed to use the brakes....

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb