05.30.04
UCLA Prof: Media Spoiled Koizumi's Diplomatic Effort

From The Korea Times: UCLA professor Tom Plate says the Japanese news media have assumed "the role of designated spoiler," describing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi as "soft" following his visit to North Korea. Many critics in the media condemned Koizumi's offer of humanitarian assistance in exchange for the release of the families of Japanese abductees living in North Korea, calling it a "sellout."  But Plate says this judgment does not represent the opinion of the nation as a whole: About 60 percent of the Japanese public approved of Koizumi's attempt at diplomacy in North Korea.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Keiko Mori
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05.29.04
Journalists Must Ensure Their Own Safety, Politicians Say

From The Japan Times: Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers said that a lack of "self-responsibility" led to the attack of two Japanese freelance journalists in Iraq. Referring to the accident as "regrettable," Jiro Kawasaki, chief deputy chairman of the LDP Diet Affairs Committee, said, "We've repeatedly called on news media and other people to think about their own safety and withdraw (from Iraq) with self-responsibility." Last month's hostage crisis involving freelance journalists prompted a similar response from politicians.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Keiko Mori
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05.29.04
Japanese Journalists Feared Dead Near Baghdad

From The Asahi Shimbun: The Japanese Foreign Ministry reported that a vehicle carrying two freelance journalists from Japan and two Iraqis came under attack on May 27 in a Baghdad suburb, and one or two of the passengers are thought to have died. The fate of the two journalists, believed to be 61-year-old Shinsuke Hashida and 33-year-old Kotaro Ogawa, is unclear, but area hospital officials said the badly burned bodies were probably those of the Japanese. The journalists were returning to Baghdad from Samawah, where Japanese Ground Self-Defense Forces are stationed.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Eric Ulken
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05.25.04
Report Backs Scandal-Plagued Ratings System

From The Daily Yomiuri: Research conducted by the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan (NAB) concludes that the current audience measurement system is "adequate" to evaluate the viewership of TV programs, but a complementary qualitative standard should be added. After a ratings scandal involving Nippon Television Network Corp. (NTV) last October, in which a variety show producer manipulated ratings, observers raised the question of whether the present rating system should remain. (See Week in Review 10.25.03) Audience ratings are currently calculated from a survey of households selected by Video Research Ltd., the sole audience measurement firm. While the rating system indicates the number of households that watched a specific program, it does not identify who saw the program or what they thought about it. The group failed to make specific recommendations about what kind of qualitative research should be gathered, but it plans to release another report next month.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Keiko Mori
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05.25.04
Japanese Press Pans Bush Speech

From CNN International: While diplomatic leaders in Japan openly welcomed the Bush administration's proposed U.N. resolution on Iraq, outlined in a speech on May 24, the Japanese media were less kind. The president's speech describing U.S. plans for a sovereign Iraq was derided as damage control following the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal. NHK, Japan's public broadcaster, said plans to destroy the notorious prison outside of Baghdad were only intended to boost America's image abroad.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Eric Ulken
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05.25.04
DTV Recording Restrictions Draw Complaints

From The Japan Times: NHK and other broadcast networks have received more than 15,000 questions and complaints about new measures they implemented to prevent viewers from duplicating digital TV programs. Since April 5, NHK and members of the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan (NAB) have broadcast programs with a special transmission code that restricts copying of the programs in order to protect copyrights. The duplication controls, which affect both digital terrestrial and satellite television, were partly a response to increasing piracy of popular Japanese TV dramas in foreign markets. But viewers say the restriction deprives them of the right to edit programs on their computers. The Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications aims to have all terrestrial and satellite broadcasting in digital format by 2011.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Keiko Mori
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05.19.04
Network Briefly Banned From N. Korea Trip

From Mainichi Daily News: Intense criticism prompted the government to back away from banning a TV network's journalists from accompanying Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on a trip to North Korea. NTV, which reported May 16 on a planned humanitarian aid package for North Korea, said it was told by the prime minister's secretary that the report could have derailed the visit. NTV refused to air a retraction or reveal its sources. Koizumi's official visit to North Korea is a rare opportunity for foreign media to gain access to the isolated communist state.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Eric Ulken
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05.18.04
AOL Exits Japanese Market With Sale of ISP

From the Financial Times: AOL is selling its Japanese Internet service provider to eAccess for $18.4 million, leaving the Time Warner subsidiary with no operations in Japan and ending a high-profile, eight-year attempt to make a go of it there. The announcement comes about six months after AOL's domestic partner, NTT DoCoMo, sold its 40 percent stake in AOL Japan (formerly called DoCoMo AOL) back to Time Warner. (See Week in Review 12.17.03) EAccess intends to market its broadband and wireless Internet access solutions to AOL Japan's 400,000 subscribers, 350,000 of whom still use dial-up connections.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Eric Ulken
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05.17.04
Writer: Press Too Cozy With Officials

From The New York Times: When Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi admitted that he failed to make required payments to the national pension system -- after first declaring that he had never lapsed -- press reaction was fairly muted, compared to the heavy criticism that erupted after similar revelations about two other powerful politicians. (See Week in Review 05.08.04) An explanation, writes Norimitsu Onishi, can be found in the country's exclusive press club system. Onishi describes it as an "entrenched cartel" that ensures reporting rarely deviates much from the government line. In return for their generally noncritical reporting, press club members get valuable access to government officials under the arrangement, which dates to 1890. The system has received little scrutiny in Japan, even as South Koreans attempt to rid themselves of a similar system, saying it is incompatible with democracy.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Eric Ulken
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05.14.04
News Anchor Swept Up in Pension Scandal

From Mainichi Daily News: Television news anchor Tetsuya Chikushi, a critic of politicians who neglected to pay into Japan's national pension system, failed to come up with the mandatory pension premiums himself. Chikushi, who anchors the program News 23 on the Tokyo Broadcasting System, apologized to viewers in a broadcast last week. "I feel ashamed because I criticized politicians," Chikushi said. He failed to pay premiums from August 1989 to June 1992.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Eric Ulken
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05.13.04
Magazine Wins Libel Suit in Reversed Ruling

From The Japan Times: The Nagoya High Court ruled in favor of a magazine publisher in a libel suit concerning the use of a pseudonym in an article about an underage killer. The plaintiff, now 28, is serving a life sentence for four gang murders committed in 1994, when he was still a minor. He sued the publisher of the magazine Shukan Bunshun, claiming the pseudonym and other data could be used to identify him. Japanese law prohibits the press from identifying minors charged with crimes. The high court had originally awarded the plaintiff $2,600, but the Supreme Court struck down that decision and sent the case back for review. The publishing company, Bungei Shunju, said it hopes the case will "put the brakes on the (nation's) judiciary, which of late has been going astray" regarding privacy laws and the press. See Week in Review 04.01.04 and 03.30.04 for information on other recent high-profile privacy cases.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Eric Ulken
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05.10.04
Sony to Sell Wireless Pen PC

From Britain's The Register: Sony is releasing a wireless tablet PC specifically geared toward mobile media applications, to go on sale later this month in Japan. Unlike other pen-based tablet devices, the Vaio VGN-U70 is based on Windows XP instead of Microsoft's slimmed-down mobile operating system, making it the world's smallest full-featured Windows computer. The device can be used both in portrait mode as an e-book reader and in landscape mode for multimedia applications such as video. The unit weighs 1.2 pounds and measures 6.6 by 4.3 by 1 inches. The initial price will be $1,871.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Eric Ulken
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05.09.04
Internet Bulletin Board Grows in Popularity

From The New York Times: The chat site Channel 2, where millions of Japanese go for anonymous conversation, has become a convenient place for news organizations to measure public opinion, for marketers to observe reaction to new products, and for police to spot and prevent crime, such as when they reacted to a threat against the Chinese Embassy last week. In a society that prides itself on politeness and subtlety, the anonymity of the Internet has given people a rare chance to speak out with immunity, and Channel 2 has capitalized on the apparent need for a forum. Channel 2's founder Hiroyuki Nishimura said he wanted to create a site for which visitors would supply the content. What they supply is not always pretty -- comments are often filled with insults and bigotry -- but with 5.4 million visitors a month, the freewheeling discussion board has carved out a unique identity as the place where people come to argue, gossip and chat.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Eric Ulken
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05.08.04
TV News Opinion Survey About Hostage Crisis Cancelled

From Mainichi Daily News: TV Asahi halted an opinion survey after discovering that unanswered questions were being tallied as though readers had purposefully chosen the preselected response. The poll surveyed opinions on harassment of recently freed Japanese hostages from Iraq (see Week in Review 04.21.04). The question, "What do you think of the 'bashing' of hostages?" had a preselected response, "I think it's natural that they are criticized." That and other preselected answers, TV Asahi worried, were inadvertantly over-represented. Company officials said it was a technical error and there were no particular intentions behind it. TV Asahi had planned to present the results of the month-long poll at the end of May.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Alison Shackelford
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05.08.04
Top Koizumi Spokesman With Rocky Press History Resigns

From The Daily Yomiuri: Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, who serves as the Japanese government's top spokesman, resigned his post May 7 amid controversy over his failure to make personal payments into the nation's pension system. As Japan's longest-serving chief cabinet secretary, Fukuda has had a sometimes-tense relationship with the press, according to an Associated Press article in the San Francisco Chronicle's SFGate. He has restricted media access to some government officials and chastised other officials for information leaks.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Eric Ulken
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05.07.04
Competition Drives Small Paper Out of Business

From Fukuoka Now: Citing the pressures of competing with a local paper more than 10 times its size, the publishers of the 30,000 circulation newspaper Kagoshima Shinpo in Kagoshima Prefecture filed for bankruptcy. The company also blamed decreasing advertising income and ever-growing debt. An article from Kyodo News in Japan Today added that a disagreement between "management and the newspaper's financial sponsors" led to the closure. The shutdown put 117 people out of work.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Alison Shackelford
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Monthly Pressnet Newsletter:
China-Japan Reporter Exchange, New Newspaper Presses, Media Usage Survey

From Pressnet: Several Chinese journalists visited Japanese news outlets in mid-April as part of an exchange program, according to the May issue of The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association newsletter. The exchange was sponsored by the association and a similar journalists organization in China. The program focused on Japan-China trade relations, but was underscored by recent Chinese media reports of rising anti-Japanese sentiment in China. One Chinese journalist said the media should be careful to report such issues from a broader international perspective. 

The newsletter also reports that The Yomiuri Shimbun and regional newspaper The Chunichi Shimbun both have new printing facilities, which can produce 40-page issues with 16 color pages. Also in the May report: The association's advertising committee recently released the results of its nationwide October survey on media usage, conducted with 6,000 people age 69 and under. Over 78 percent said they habitually read newspapers, while some 80 percent said newspapers "have great influence on public opinion-making." More than 43 percent also said the Internet was best for an "abundance of available information." 
 -- By Japan Media Review Managing Editor Shellie Branco
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05.04.04
GPS Cell Phones May Spur New Features and Gadgets

From Forbes.com via Reuters: GPS-enabled cell phones in Japan already give directions and calculate the most traffic-free route home, but mobile operators are considering new ways the navigation technology could be put to use. Japan's Cybird Co. is looking at ways to let consumers get location-specific information, like local weather reports or sale prices at nearby stores, by downloading it from their digital televisions to their cell phones. Services that have been tried and flopped in other countries, however, like cell phones that picked up coupons when the user walked past certain stores, have some mobile operators looking at location-based services with caution.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Alison Shackelford
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05.03.04
Reporters Without Borders Criticizes Media in Japan

From Reporters Without Borders: In its annual report on the state of press freedom around the world, Reporters Without Borders criticized Japan on several fronts. The report by the press freedom advocacy group contends that recently passed privacy laws threaten the freedom of magazine reporting. It also criticizes the Japanese government for refusing to substantially reform the country's kisha club system, which excludes foreign reporters from most press conferences, among other things (see also Week in Review 02.22.04). Further, the report suggests that police were unconcerned by violence threatening reporters at The Asahi Shimbun in the 1980s, having recently closed cases without identifying suspects or making arrests.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Alison Shackelford
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05.02.04
Opinion: Media Must Place Foreigners' Crimes in Context

From The Japan Times: The Japanese media need to put statistics in the proper context when the National Police Agency claims crimes committed by foreigners are on the rise, said Philip Brasor in his latest Media Mix column. After Chinese students admitted to killing a family in Fukuoka last year, the media played up the angle that more crimes are being committed by Chinese students in Japan. Brasor argues that the police agency has fed off such fears to create discriminatory policies and the Foreign Ministry has followed the same path with its controversial Web site for reporting illegal aliens. (See also Week in Review 03.19.04 and 04.03.04) He praises The Asahi Shimbun, however, for portraying the economic and social factors of the issue. The paper is running an ongoing series on an imprisoned Chinese student who, in a desperate attempt to maintain honor with his family, turned to crime after he couldn't find steady work to pay for college tuition in Japan.
 -- By Japan Media Review Managing Editor Shellie Branco
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05.02.04
Al-Jazeera Opens Japanese Bureau

From Agence France-Presse via Channel NewsAsia: Pan-Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera has opened a bureau in Tokyo in an effort to expand its global coverage. The bureau currently employs three people and is receiving technical assistance from NHK, Japan's public broadcaster, for its first three months of operation. The Foreign Ministry's press secretary Hatsuhisa Takashima dismissed concerns about Al-Jazeera's controversial coverage of the Iraq war, saying the Qatar-based broadcaster had helped Japan during the recent hostage crisis. Al-Jazeera is also opening bureaus in Africa and South America. (See also Week in Review 12.31.03)
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Eric Ulken
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05.01.04
Former Hostage Defends Role of Press in War Zones

From Reuters via The New Zealand Herald: In a long-awaited press conference held by two of the Japanese citizens who were taken hostage in Iraq, former hostage and freelance photographer Soichiro Koriyama argued that journalists have a duty to take risks. Because the hostages defied government warnings to stay out of Iraq, they were at times accused of causing their own kidnapping by putting themselves in harm's way. "Precisely because it is dangerous, journalists must take the risk to tell the truth and report the news," Koriyama said at the April 30 press conference, arguing that taking "personal responsibility" was not the issue. The Asahi Shimbun chimed in with an editorial last week, saying "journalists and aid workers would be unable to fulfill their duties if they meekly followed the government advice."
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Alison Shackelford
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