In the past, the press was often accused of bearing down too hard on victims of crimes and their families. In the most extreme cases, the media would camp outside the homes of victims who didn't want to talk to them (the family of the Kobe boy who was beheaded by another boy in 1995) or imply that a victim was not really a victim but perhaps responsible for the crime (the initial suspect in the Matsumoto Sarin Poisoning of 1994).

The press has been understandably conscientious about its coverage of the Ikeda Elementary School killings that took place in Osaka in June 2001. For the most part, they did not seek out the parents of the slain children, but they nevertheless welcomed with comforting arms and moist eyes those parents who wished to vent their anger and grief.

The case, which ended last month with the killer, Mamoru Takuma, sentenced to death, was an extraordinary one, and not just because of its brutality. Takuma has maintained from the beginning that he killed the eight children because he specifically wanted to be condemned to death.