The excitement last weekend over North Korea's release of some of the Japanese abductees' children overshadowed another news story about prisoners of the state -- the Japanese Imperial family. Crown Prince Naruhito returned from his whirlwind wedding tour of Europe to a tense Imperial Household Agency and his "worried" parents, all of whom wanted to know just what he meant when, shortly before he left, he said that certain unnamed persons were doing something or other that may or may not be causing his wife anxiety and that this was what led to the illness that prevented her from accompanying him. Perhaps.

Despite the elevated circumlocutions, everybody got the point. Unfortunately, the Crown Prince did not follow up his predeparture press conference with a postreturn clarification, at least not for the public. That means we're all free to speculate on Princess Masako's real situation and whether or not the Crown Prince is in the imperial doghouse. And it's fun to speculate. The media should try it.

As it is, they report problems within the Imperial family by conveying related news stories from the foreign press. Almost all the "scoops" about the royals come from overseas and are the products of leaks. In the past, these leaks came from Japanese reporters who felt they could not report them themselves, but even then the only possible source for that information was insiders; in other words, leaks by members of the Imperial Household Agency.