Tag - media-mix

 
 

MEDIA MIX

Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 7, 2012
Animal Welfare Law left neutered
The friction between competing political parties no longer fortifies the effectiveness of lawmaking. If anything it confounds the process. The opposition Liberal Democratic Party has openly vowed to be legislatively uncooperative until the ruling Democratic Party of Japan calls an election, so in order...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 30, 2012
Senkaku issue falls hard from the shelf
Tanaage, which means to put something on the shelf, is a term that pops up often in the coverage of the current imbroglio over the islands that Japan calls the Senkakus. There is disagreement over when China, which calls the islands Diaoyu, started insisting they were its territory, but in any case the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 23, 2012
Scrutiny of Tohoku reconstruction funds needed
Last December there was a mild eruption of indignation when it was reported that some of the money earmarked for reconstruction of areas affected by the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 would go to protect research whaling from interventionists like Sea Shepherd. Greenpeace and a few other organizations...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 16, 2012
Japan's depressing increase in psychoactive drug use
In July, the British pharmaceutical behemoth GlaxoSmithKline reached a $3 billion settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over the company's illegal marketing of several drugs in the United States. One of these, the antidepressant Paxil, was pushed by GSK salespersons for treating children,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 9, 2012
It will take more than a pop group to save Fukushima's reputation
Last March, Tatsuya Yamaguchi of the idol group Tokio told the media that he was determined to someday reopen Dash Village, the farm that he and his bandmates built from scratch as an ongoing project on their long-running Nippon TV series "The Tetsuwan Dash." The farm is in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture,...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 2, 2012
Unwanted pregnancies need to be discussed
Two weeks ago a 17-year-old girl collapsed in a shopping mall in Hiroshima and was rushed to the hospital. At the same time a dead fetus was found on the floor in the corner of the mall's food court. The girl eventually admitted that she had just given birth to the child. On Aug. 9, a cleaning person...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 26, 2012
In the real world if it looks like violence it's violence
On Aug. 15 police in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture, arrested a 19-year-old man for trying to kill the head of the local board of education. The suspect was reportedly angry at the board's failure to properly investigate the suicide of a male junior high school student last October. After the parents of the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 19, 2012
Serious island negotiations long overdue
As the adage goes, possession is nine-tenths of the law, though to my knowledge there is no law anywhere that codifies such an equation. The point is, if you actually hold something then it's going to be that much harder for someone else to take it, regardless of that person's claim of ownership. Right...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 12, 2012
Osaka trial highlights Japan's deficient mental-illness facilities
On July 30, the Osaka District Court sentenced a 42-year-old man to 20 years in prison for killing his sister. That's the maximum term for the crime, but it's also four years more than what prosecutors demanded. The reasoning behind the decision of the court, which included lay judges, has provoked an...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 5, 2012
Strong work ethic is no path to better standard of living
Last week I spoke to a non-Japanese economics researcher employed by a Japanese university. He said he was working on a study that compared Spain's current fiscal crisis to Japan's economic situation as a means of determining if the former would suffer the same long-term problems as the latter. I mentioned...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 29, 2012
When being first class only gets you a seat in economy
Thanks to international media coverage, everybody in the world is now convinced that the Japan Olympic Committee is sexist. When two of Japan's national soccer teams recently flew to Europe prior to participating in the Olympics, the women's squad was placed in the premium economy section (¥470,000)...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 22, 2012
Strength in numbers for protesters, but just how many are there?
Ever since last summer, when antinuclear demonstrations materialized in response to the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown, there's been an ongoing argument about just how many people show up for these protests. Conventional wisdom says the organizers exaggerate the numbers while the major media underestimate...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 15, 2012
Better a ban on work drinks than a ban on workers drinking
On July 6, the president of Fuji TV, Ko Toyoda, held a press conference and apologized for a June 9 segment of the variety show "Mecha Mecha Iketeru!" in which a group of celebrities had a drinking contest. Three citizens organizations, including a group of parents of children killed in drunk-driving...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 8, 2012
What nobody is saying about Noda's new consumption tax bill
Two weeks ago, the Lower House passed a law to increase the consumption tax to 10 percent by 2015, something Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has been pushing with blinkered, self-sacrificial dedication. Eventual final passage seems inevitable at this point, and so the only aspect deemed worthy of discussion...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 1, 2012
Often-ignored immigration issue raised in new film
Several weeks ago, U.S. President Barack Obama said that he wants to allow younger undocumented immigrants who came to America as children to stay, and last week the Supreme Court struck down some provisions of Arizona's controversial law requiring police to check individuals they suspect of being in...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 24, 2012
Escaped-animal antics are good for ratings
One of the interesting factoids accompanying the escaped-penguin story that delighted the media for the last three months is that Japan has more penguins in captivity than any other country. Tokyo Sea Life Park, the facility from which the male Humboldt penguin in question made his break, has 135. The...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 17, 2012
Watami under scrutiny after karōshi
Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto has been compared to Adolf Hitler in the media for his authoritarian governing style, but on a realistic level he seems more like an overbearing boss. The famous tattoo controversy comes down to the notion that, as mayor, he employs city workers, and since the city's residents...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 10, 2012
The public shame of crying poor
Public acts of contrition don't get any more dramatic than comedian Junichi Komoto's May 25 press conference, where he apologized for allowing his mother to collect government welfare payments even though he's made good money himself as a TV personality. Josei Seven, the women's weekly that broke the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 3, 2012
Homophobic joke goes awry for Beat
On the May 12 edition of the TBS current affairs variety show "Newscaster" comedian "Beat" Takeshi Kitano made a joke about homosexual unions during a discussion of U.S. President Barack Obama's recent comment in support of same-sex marriage. Kitano's mission as the program's resident chief commentator...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 27, 2012
Anniversary of Okinawa's reversion highlights opposing press views
In February, Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba assured the mayor of Iwakuni City and the governor of Yamaguchi Prefecture that Japan would not ask the people they serve to take on "any additional burden" from U.S. forces. Iwakuni already has a Marine Corps air station, and it is thought that the United...

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