This essay examines the response to Korea-related media coverage and questions the responsibility of Japanese journalism in shaping public opinion. It reflects on past controversies, the role of investigative reporting, and the impact of digital information warfare in modern Japan–Korea relations.

January 8, 2019.
The failure to fundamentally reexamine the nature of Japanese journalism at that time is one of the major causes of the current confusion.
A well-read friend told me this after watching what could only be described as an embarrassing rebuttal video in the news.
“Korea reads your ‘Turntable of Civilization’ more than anyone else,” he said.
“For a country shaped by hierarchical diplomacy to read your essays, that alone proves the magnitude of your presence.”
It was a somewhat flattering remark, yet I had in fact felt the same.
The moment I saw on the news how Korea had disseminated information in multiple languages, even adding Arabic, I sensed the validity of my friend’s observation.
In recent years, whenever I wrote facts inconvenient for Korea, various forms of interference using search manipulation and similar tactics had been directed at my blog, and I told my friend so.
Regarding Korea’s recent response, NHK’s News Watch 9 has said nothing that should have been said as Japan and as representatives of the Japanese public.
It has not reported the truth.
Meanwhile, an essay by Ryusho Kadota that arrived via a weekly magazine distributed online cast a sharp light on the current state of Japanese journalism.
He is one of the few journalists who continued to verify the Fukushima Daiichi accident reporting based on records and facts.
It is still fresh in memory how that verification forced a major reconsideration within Japanese media organizations.
Together with the comfort-women reporting issue, it became a turning point at which the media’s own responsibility was called into question.
Yet it cannot be said that Japanese society as a whole thoroughly reconsidered the nature of journalism at that time.
As a result, information that generates misunderstanding and confrontation may still be circulating internationally.
To build a truly future-oriented Japan–Korea relationship, Japan must reexamine its own domestic media posture.
The essence of this issue is not merely a dispute with a neighboring country.
It is a question of Japan’s own capacity to transmit information and its willingness to confront the truth.