Japanese government media censorship


This 2015 video is called Press Censorship In Japan.

From Foreign Policy in the USA:

Under the heavy hand of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan’s media is being forced to toe the government line. Or else

By Martin Fackler

May 27, 2016

TOKYO — As the leaders of the G-7 liberal democracies convened in the Japanese shrine town of Ise-Shima this week, host Prime Minister Shinzo Abe used the event to showcase his nation as a regional beacon of democratic values and a counterweight to authoritarian China. However, recent events have raised doubts about his commitment to at least one of those values — freedom of the press.

There have been alarming signs of deteriorating media freedoms in Japan. In March, three of the country’s most outspoken television anchors were removed almost simultaneously by three different networks. While the networks were acting on their own, the dismissals were widely seen as orchestrated by the Abe government: The three were some of the last high-profile media critics of its agenda, which includes restarting Japan’s nuclear power industry and rolling back its postwar pacifism. The sacked anchors joined a growing list of critical media voices that have been muted since Abe took office in December 2012. And their ouster came just weeks after the country’s communications minister, Sanae Takaichi, declared in Japan’s parliament, the Diet, that the government had the legal power to shut down TV broadcasters that it deemed to be politically biased. That announcement capped a difficult year-and-a-half for independent media that saw the largest liberal newspaper, the Asahi Shimbun, subdued and other critical commentators removed from the airwaves.

10 thoughts on “Japanese government media censorship

  1. Yes I know it’s about Japan, but I feel it is still a good opportunity to point out the fact of America’s particular press crimes because the U.S. holds itself up as a model of free speech for the world to emulate – and that is a huge lie.

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    • True about media self-censorship on the Pentagon, CIA, etc.

      Concerning the president in the USA and prime minister in Japan recently, there is a difference. Big Media like Fox News have a record of personal, including racist, attacks on President Obama and his family. While in Japan, there is slavishness to Shinzo Abe as a person.

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