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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 15, 2007

Citizen-journalism Web sites struggle to attract reporters

Most people would probably consider park benches an unusual target for journalistic scrutiny, but Yumiko Hayakawa was determined to get to the bottom of the matter. She interviewed over 100 people, spoke to park officials, gave out a questionnaire and took photos in parks around Tokyo.
EDITORIALS
Oct 6, 2006

Encouragement for reporters

The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal filed by a U.S. health-food maker against a high court decision that upheld a reporter's right to keep a news source secret. The decision concerns an NHK report that the Japanese subsidiary of the company had underreported its revenues to reduce tax bills.
EDITORIALS
Mar 21, 2006

Court misses the big picture

Protecting a news source is the most important ethic of a reporter. But the Tokyo District Court has mounted a frontal attack on this principle, endangering freedom of press and the people's right to know. The court decided March 14 that when the possibility exists that a news source is a public servant,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jul 4, 2004

Seiichi Kanise: Media insider casts an outsider's eye on Japan

After 17 years' experience as a top-flight news reporter both at home and abroad, in 1991 Seiichi Kanise began a 10-year stint as a TV news anchorman. Then, after covering a wide range of news events, in 2003 he accepted an offer from the Tokyo-based Bunka Hoso (Nippon Cultural Broadcasting Inc.) radio...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 6, 2002

When every channel is the same channel

Ever since the advent of that popular programming idea known as the "wide show" in the mid-1980s, so-called hard news and tabloid news have slowly merged into an alloy of informational reporting that defies easy categorization.
JAPAN / FREEDOM OF PRESS IN THE BALANCE
Nov 28, 2000

Media 'self-discipline' lacking: politicians

It was like a kangaroo court when the House of Representatives Communications Committee in March 1999 grilled the president and chief news editor of Asahi National Broadcasting Network about the contents of a popular news show, said Taizo Fukudomea, who was on the committee.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 14, 2022

Vladimir Putin, family man

As Western nations place sanctions on people close to the Russian leader, including family members, the strict secrecy surrounding his private life is being punctured.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 21, 2021

Modi’s war on the press

In late January, police filed criminal charges against eight journalists. Their crime: reporting the claims of a dead protester's family that he had been shot and killed by the police.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 26, 2021

Australia’s face-off with Facebook is of global import

In one clumsy strike, Facebook unified the entire Australian political spectrum, alienated its users and underlined just why tech giants require enforceable regulation.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 19, 2020

Taiwan shuts pro-China TV channel in battle over press freedom

Taiwan’s broadcast regulator has ordered the closure of one of the island’s most ardently pro-China cable news networks following a monthslong battle over journalistic standards and freedom of the press.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 5, 2020

Competing interests of labor unions laid bare at TV Asahi

When a company's workforce contains both journalists and news program workers, conflict can arise.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 17, 2019

The U.S. media is in the gutter with Trump

American journalism used to adhere to strict standards, then the U.S. media declared war on Donald Trump.
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2019

Municipalities launch multilingual services for crises

The eighth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11 is a good opportunity to learn disaster preparedness measures. Understanding how to obtain emergency information from reliable sources, such as local governments, is a good first step.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 20, 2018

Spotlight falls on Japan's female TV presenters

On Sept. 4, the new presenters for Nippon TV's nightly news show, "News Zero," were introduced at a press conference in Tokyo. It's not unusual for TV stations to revamp current affairs shows, but the new version of "News Zero," which premiered Oct. 1, has attracted more than the usual measure of attention...
Japan Times
EDITORIALS
Sep 8, 2018

Turning a new page

The Japan Times is saying goodbye to Shibaura, the district in Minato Ward, Tokyo, that has been home to our company for the past 52 years. We are moving to a new office in the Kioicho district in Chiyoda Ward — but that is the ward where the company spent the first 69 years since its founding in 1897....
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 11, 2015

Algorithms give us what we want, but little else

Algorithms may take the guesswork out of marketing, crime prevention and even romance. But they also take the guesswork out of life itself, making it predictably dull.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 27, 2014

Murdoch sets up sons to take top roles in media empire

Rupert Murdoch has returned eldest son Lachlan to the leadership of his media empire while promoting younger son James, paving the way for the 83-year-old tycoon to pass the reins to the family's next generation.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 14, 2013

Somali-American is caught up in U.S. counterpropaganda campaign

Two days after he became a U.S. citizen, Abdiwali Warsame embraced the First Amendment by creating a raucous website about his native Somalia. Packed with news and controversial opinions, it rapidly became a magnet for Somalis dispersed around the world, including tens of thousands in Minnesota.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 22, 2010

BBC World Service's vices

HONG KONG — If there is one global voice that has a deserved reputation for truth, honesty, fairness, awareness, understanding and balance, it is the BBC, as almost everyone knows the British Broadcasting Corp., and its World Service radio programs.
COMMENTARY
Oct 16, 2009

Summit highlights media problems in China

HONG KONG — It seems that almost every week brings new signs of China's rise, with a commensurate increase in its international influence and soft power as well as in its economic, political and military clout.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 7, 2009

NHK a fount of info, a lot of it from the government

Sometimes compared with the British Broadcasting Corporation or America's Public Broadcasting System — and by its fiercest critics even to the state-run media in China and North Korea — NHK boasts two terrestrial television services, three satellite television services, three radio networks and the...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jan 6, 2007

Bear with me on this

Hiker beware. For the woods are full of bears. And they will get you if you don't watch out.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 19, 2005

Media conspiracy of concealment costs social progress dear

What do these Japanese people have in common: A neighbor of people whose house has burned down; an uncle or aunt of someone who has been the victim of a crime; a person who has had food poisoning?
EDITORIALS
Jun 23, 2002

What's 'Onion' in Chinese

You have to feel a little sorry for those fellows over at the Beijing Evening News. Here they are a global laughingstock, and they still don't get why. But was it altogether their fault? Those of us who have tried and failed to comprehend humor, let alone satire, in a foreign language are privately thinking,...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 5, 2022

How China embraces Russian propaganda and its version of the war

In much of the world, Russia is losing the information war over Ukraine. In China, though, it's winning big.
The incoming and outgoing presidents of Johnny & Associates, Noriyuki Higashiyama and Julie Keiko Fujishima, bow at a press conference on Sept. 7.
PODCAST / deep dive
Sep 14, 2023

Johnny’s talent agency has admitted to a past of abuse. What next?

Karin Kaneko joins the show to update us on how the story is unfolding.
Chung Pui-kuen, the former chief editor of now-shuttered Hong Kong pro-democracy news outlet Stand News, leaves the district court in Hong Kong on Thursday after he was found guilty of conspiracy to publish seditious materials.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Aug 30, 2024

Hong Kong editors convicted of sedition in blow to press freedom

Local news outlets in Hong Kong already self-censor to survive and some foreign news organizations have left or moved out staff.
Members of the media crowd the venue before the start of a news conference at Fuji TV's headquarters in Tokyo on Monday.
JAPAN / Society / First person
Jan 28, 2025

Yelling and random tangents: What it was like covering Fuji TV's 10-hour presser

The once-in-a-lifetime news conference showed what would happen when the Japanese press was given total freedom with no time limits.
JAPAN / Society
Oct 11, 2023

Johnny's denies that it was involved in reporter blacklisting

The agency responded to the backlash that arose over a journalist blacklist for a news conference addressing sexual abuse allegations by its late founder.
PODCAST / deep dive
Dec 7, 2023

Feeling anxious? Wastewater, heat and Japan’s year in climate

In a year that saw Japan release 24,000 tons of wastewater (so far) from Fukushima No. 1 as the planet smashed heat records, it’s no wonder climate anxiety is on the rise. Mara Budgen joins us to break down the year in environment news, where we could see hope, and what we should be worried about....

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past