The term "fake news" was used in so many different situations this year that it no longer describes an agreed upon concept but rather anything you don't agree with. This is why the U.S. press has had a difficult time making sense of its president's conflation of cynical policy aims with his own deranged self-esteem.
Aside from players with axes to grind on either side of the ideological divide, outlets such as The Washington Post managed to keep facts in sight and as a result did some of their best work in years.
Matters aren't as problematic in Japan because the mainstream media here rarely acts in an adversarial capacity. Japan's masukomi (mass communication) is on the same power continuum that runs through the country's political and economic worlds, but the fact that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has bet the nation's well-being on the Manichean delusions of U.S. President Donald Trump should make all Japanese reporters and editors with a conscience worry about the state of their souls.
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