Published on January 5, 2020. This article cites Sankei Shō and criticizes the editorials of the Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun at the first New Year of the Reiwa era. It questions their abstract and one-sided attacks on the Abe administration and introduces Kadota Ryusho’s prediction that the collapse of the mass media will become a reality. It argues that old-fashioned newspaper and television reporting often feels more like impression manipulation and is more off the mark than various verification articles found on the internet.

2020-01-05
Frankly speaking, there are many occasions when I feel that the old-fashioned reporting of newspapers and television is more manipulative in impression and more off the mark than various verification articles on the internet.
The following is from yesterday’s Sankei Shō.
We have welcomed the first New Year since the beginning of the Reiwa era.
This year is also the year of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, and I had wanted to spend New Year’s Day in a fresh and exciting mood, but because of my profession, I could not avoid a customary event that made me feel somewhat heavy.
It was nothing more than checking the morning editions of other newspapers, but as expected, I found myself feeling annoyed and thinking, “Here we go again.”
The Asahi Shimbun, in its editorial, repeated its usual criticism of the Shinzo Abe administration.
“It repeatedly criticizes the media and intimidates freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
It does not hesitate to treat critics and minorities in a discriminatory and aggressive manner.”
Since it does not write specifically what actions it is referring to, I cannot tell.
The Mainichi Shimbun was much the same.
“Far from listening to the objections of the opposition parties, its attitude of even treating them as enemies stands out.
The method by which it thereby secures a firm support base follows the current of populism.”
Well, the expression “stands out” should normally be a phrase used in a positive sense.
There is a phrase the mass media like to use, taking it as their mission: “monitoring power.”
I have no intention whatsoever of denying that, and it is only natural that those in power become targets of criticism.
That said, when such criticism is filled with excessively abstract and one-sided assertions, it ends up sounding like mere abuse and slander.
The writer and journalist Kadota Ryusho, in a New Year special contribution to our sister paper Yukan Fuji, predicted that this year the collapse of the mass media would become a reality.
“Old media cannot respond at all to the internet generation, which knows the truth based on media literacy.”
Frankly speaking, there are many occasions when I feel that the old-fashioned reporting of newspapers and television is more manipulative in impression and more off the mark than various verification articles on the internet.
I would like to take Mr. Kadota’s words as both a rebuke and an encouragement, and try to shed my old skin so that I can adapt to the times.