The Tokyo High Court on Wednesday upheld a lower court ruling ordering Fuji Television Network Inc. to pay 1 million yen in damages to a man named in the broadcaster's coverage of a rape allegation.
The Tokyo-based broadcaster argued in the high court that "broadcasting did not damage (the man's) reputation because newspapers were repeatedly reporting the man as the rapist."
Presiding Judge Yoshinori Ishikawa, however, said, "Given (the magnitude) of the impact of television, which feeds information to passive viewers, broadcasting did impair (the man's) reputation in society."