Former NYT Chief Explains Japan’s Lack of Journalistic Freedom

Martin Fackler, former Tokyo bureau chief of the New York Times, gave a lecture high above Tokyo at Academy Hills in Roppongi last Thursday, primarily about why Japan’s quality and freedom of the press has regressed from a world ranking of 11 to 72 since 2010 (Press Freedom Index). Filling the auditorium were around 100 mostly-Japanese journalists, students and teachers interested in getting the outsider insight on why Japanese news sources are... Read More

Brand Japan, Brand Abe: A Clash of Narratives

Written by Nancy Snow Two decades ago I was working at the United States Information Agency (USIA), an independent foreign affairs agency of the U.S. Government. We were separate from the Department of State—the counterpart to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan, and our primary task was Public Diplomacy. Some called what we did government propaganda. To be precise, the slogan stamped across the agency façade was “Telling America’s Story... Read More

Japan’s Designated Secrets Law: All you ever wanted to know but should be afraid to ask. (LOL)

On December 7th, the ruling bloc of the Japanese government passed into law a Secrecy bill which many feel threatens freedom of the speech and the freedom of the press. For those who are interested in finding more about Japan’s Designated Secrets Law, here are source materials that you may find useful.  These are material distributed to the foreign press by the Cabinet Office last week before the bill became law. The Abe cabinet promised to... Read More

The Best Articles About Japan 2012 (on our blog) :D

Dear Gentle Reader, All of us at Japan Subculture Research Center would like to thank you for your  reading the articles posted here this last year, your contributions, and your comments. Here are some of the articles we thought were the most amusing, edifying, or just fun, grouped together in general order.  We had some outstanding outside contributions which made for some excellent reading–and to those contributors thank you as well. Whether... Read More

The Trial Of Minoru Tanaka: The high cost of investigative journalism in Japan & “the nuclear mafia”

Minoru Tanaka, journalist An article which appeared last year in the December 16 issue of “Kinyobi” weekly written by Minoru Tanaka, resulted in a punitive lawsuit against him.  The article called the head of a group of nuclear industry related companies, Shiro Shirakawa, a “fixer.” In Japan a “fixer” is said to be “a behind-the-scenes person who gets paid for mediating with anti-social forces or covering up scandals, or arranging... Read More

The Journo Blues: A Song Inspired By Arianna Huffington

This month, I know two good journalists who lost their jobs when their prospective publications folded. Rupert Murdoch’s The Daily was one of them. It was making 6 million dollars a year but still not enough to stay in operation. In this same month, I got two requests to intern at the Japan Subculture Research Center. I’d love to have more writers but I have no budget to pay them. Well, maybe a cup of coffee or dinner. Whenever someone... Read More