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JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 9, 2010

TV Tokyo's soft approach toughens consumer savvy

Each of Japan's key commercial TV stations has distinctive traits, though in terms of programming these distinctions are probably insignificant to the average viewer, especially when you often have the boy band Arashi appearing on two or three different stations in the same evening.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Apr 6, 2010

2channel's success rests on anonymity

The nation's largest online forum, 2channel, draws millions of people ranging from the benign to the malignant, from police hunting criminals to politicians and corporations keeping their ears to the rail of public opinion.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 13, 2009

Wresting the press from pampered hacks

HONG KONG — Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, was adamant that a free press is the most precious of all freedoms because it opens up or expands other freedoms. He famously wrote that given the choice of a government without a free press or a free press without a government,...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 3, 2009

It's tough times for type — but too soon to write off newspapers yet

Back in the early 1990s, my wife, children and I were visiting my in-laws when one of my daughters, then aged 6, pointed to something on the table and exclaimed, "Daddy, what's that?"
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 23, 2008

'Manga' fans have been won over but what about the rest of Japan?

A curious thing happened to the stock market when Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda announced Sept. 1 his intention to step down: Shares in "manga"-related companies surged.
JAPAN
Mar 30, 2008

Japan Times receives Genesis Bardot award

The Japan Times was among a select band of U.S. and international media outlets announced Friday as the winners of the 22nd Genesis Awards at a star-studded ceremony in Beverly Hills, Calif.
COMMENTARY
Jun 30, 2007

Hong Kong media thrive under China

LOS ANGELES — Not every place in the world takes its news media seriously, to say the least. Some governments view it as a nuisance, if not a menace; others as an arm of public instruction, if not propaganda. But this is not the view taken here in what (since the 1997 handover from Britain) is officially...
JAPAN
May 15, 2007

Court rejects lawsuit over Monju coverup suicide

, argued he committed suicide in 1996 because Donen forced him to lie at a news conference about its attempt to conceal video footage of damage caused by the leak. But the presiding judge in the case, Tsutomu Yamazaki, said there was no objective evidence proving that Donen, the predecessor of the Japan...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 11, 2007

Russia's progress and regress

SANTA MONICA, California -- Fifteen years after the Soviet Union collapsed and split apart, Russia still fits British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's characterization of Josef Stalin's Soviet Union nearly seven decades ago: "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."
BUSINESS
Nov 8, 2006

Son, Murdoch announce kickoff of MySpace Japan

Softbank Corp. and News Corp. of the U.S. said Tuesday they are teaming up to launch a Japanese version of the MySpace.com social networking Web site.
JAPAN
Apr 25, 2006

Tokyo court backs reporter on refusing to name source

The Tokyo District Court on Monday accepted in principle a Kyodo News reporter's refusal to reveal a news source in connection with a 1997 report on the taxation of a Japanese subsidiary of a U.S. health food company.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 24, 2005

Documenting hell on Earth: At a theater near you

Because of the dangerous situation there, none of the commercial Japanese TV networks have staff correspondents in Iraq. On-site reporting that's shown on Japanese TV is from either other countries' news organizations or freelance Japanese reporters, the most prominent of whom is probably Takeharu Watai,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 22, 2005

Fresh foreign angles

Japan has been a magnet for foreign writers and journalists since opening to the West.
EDITORIALS
Apr 13, 2003

In search of the real al-Jazeera

The war in Iraq hasn't been easy for nonparticipants such as Japan to sort out. The most obvious villains were also technically the victims, and the perpetrators of hostilities have looked like invaders one minute, liberators the next. Perceptions and judgments could, and still do, shift like the wind....
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2002

Covering their tracks on the way to war

To obfuscate the waging of war on several fronts simultaneously may seem an unlikely and incredible ambition. However, as more and more information surrounding Japan's attacks on Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in the Pacific on Dec. 7, 1941, comes to light, it becomes ever more clear that its military rulers...
JAPAN
Nov 9, 2002

Amnesty criticizes rights-protection bills

Amnesty International Japan has "serious concerns" over a set of bills the government says will protect human rights and personal information, saying they will be ineffective in preventing violations by authorities.
COMMENTARY
Jul 24, 2002

Chinese media's coverage of U.S. proves balanced

HONG KONG -- A study of the Chinese media, commissioned by a bipartisan American congressional panel -- the U.S. China Security Review Commission -- has found that the controlled Chinese press, in its reporting on the United States, appears to be relatively balanced overall.
JAPAN
Dec 2, 2001

Congratulations on birth of princess pour in from overseas

South Korea, Thailand, Brunei and the Philippines were among the first countries Saturday to hail the birth of a princess to the Crown Prince and Princess.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 7, 2001

What Lara can tell us about Afghanistan

Angelina Jolie's new movie, "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider," might not be up to much, but I have a lot of respect for Jolie herself. On Sept. 10, at a Tokyo press conference to promote the film, the actress mentioned her new job as special ambassador for the U.N. High Commission for Refugees. She spent almost...
JAPAN
Apr 17, 2001

Crown Princess showing signs of pregnancy

The Crown Princess, 37, is showing signs that she might be pregnant, the Imperial Household Agency announced Monday.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 12, 2000

Japan's not-so-silent media conspiracy

Some months ago I went up to Tohoku to give a public lecture sponsored by a television station. After the talk there was a delightful, informal dinner, during which I chatted with an old friend, a producer at the station.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 8, 2000

Japan's media watchdog is a lap dog

CLOSING THE SHOP: Information Cartels and Japan's Mass Media, by Laurie Anne Freeman. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000, 256 pp. $39.50 (cloth). This excellent book lays bare the mechanisms of the information cartels in Japan that prop up the state, insulate the elite from sustained critical...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 23, 2000

Breaking down the doors of Japan's discriminatory press clubs

In May 1993, David Butts, then Tokyo bureau chief of Bloomberg Business News, was fed up. After years of unsuccessful efforts to penetrate Japan's press clubs through polite negotiation, the tall Texan chose a more direct approach. On the day annual company reports were released, Butts, with other foreign...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 2, 1999

Taiwan quake shakes China's mandate

BEIJING -- Chinese news coverage of the killer earthquake in Taiwan has been both muted and sporadic, ranging from solicitous concern for the rogue province to no news at all. When the earthquake did get print or air time in the week following the temblor, coverage tended to focus on what mainland authorities,...
JAPAN
Mar 11, 1999

Dioxin report 'inappropriate,' TV Asahi chief tells Diet

TV Asahi President Kunio Ito apologized Thursday before the Diet for a news report aired last month that claimed high concentrations of dioxin were detected in vegetables grown in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, calling the report "inappropriate."
CULTURE / Books
Mar 8, 1999

The view from the 20th floor

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS IN JAPAN, edited by Charles Pomeroy, Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1998, 367 pp., 3,700 yen (cloth). The image Japan projects abroad comes not only from the government or big business; it also arises from a certain private club occupying the 20th floor of a building overlooking the...

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