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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...
JAPAN
Sep 7, 1998

Kurosawa to receive special award

Film director Akira Kurosawa, who died Sunday, will posthumously receive the People's Honor Award in recognition of his lifetime work, the top government spokesman said Monday.
Japan Times
Special Supplements / Hiroshima G7 Summit Special
May 19, 2023

Nonstate actors issue call for stronger climate policies

The Japan Climate Initiative, a network that connects stakeholders who are taking action on climate change, held a news conference to announce the release of its message, “Overcoming Two Crises with Renewable Energy and Carbon Pricing,” in Sapporo on April 12, three days before the G7 Ministers’...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 18, 2023

How Japanese media companies enabled Johnny’s abuse

The power dynamics of Japan's entertainment and media industries ultimately meant that accusations of sexual abuse were not investigated.
PODCAST / deep dive
May 17, 2023

Yes, crime is on the rise in Japan. No, you don’t have to panic.

The year so far has been marked with several high-profile crime stories and, according to the numbers, crime is on the rise. However, the types of crime we’re seeing are different from before.
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 13, 2023

North Korean missile prompts Japan to issue brief evacuation warning

The rare activation of the country's J-Alert warning system had initially urged residents to take shelter either inside buildings or underground.

Longform

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