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Reveals how the Japanese media have dangerously overstepped their boundaries and distorted-even wiped out-honest news in favour of government propaganda. And worse, Japanese citizens are frequently persecuted and threatened by the very institution they turn to for truth.

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Library Journal Review

Given the regular criticism of the American media as "tabloid," this look at another country's print journalism is especially valuable. The authors first describe the two aspects of the Japanese news media: the daily newspapers, which are dominated by the Japanese press clubs, and the tabloid-style weekly news magazines. Gamble (In the Footsteps of Thoreau) and Watanabe (media ethics, Doshisha Univ., Kyoto) show how the press clubs manipulate the information presented in the newspapers and then describe in detail the methods used by the newsweeklies to increase sales, including gossip, rumor, and sometimes pornography. The remainder of the book examines specific stories in detail, showing how they were treated by the media. In one example, they compare the American media's treatment of Richard Jewell after the 1996 Atlanta Olympic bombing with the Japanese media's portrayal of Sarin gas victim Yoshiyuki Kono. The authors convincingly show that Japan's print media are prone to distortion and mistakes. Of interest to larger public libraries, as well as most academic libraries.-Joel W. Tscherne, Cleveland P.L. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

In view of what they document about threats and actions against those who speak out on sensitive issues in Japan, Gamble (a US investigative reporter) and Watanabe (media ethics, Doshisha University, Kyoto; visiting scholar, Harvard, 2001) may have rough times ahead. The authors use five case studies--the sarin-gas attack, antisemitism and denial of the Holocaust, the smearing of a Buddhist leader as a rapist, the whitewashing of the Nanjing Massacre, the rewriting of the story of Japan's WW II sex slaves--to show how Japanese media have abused freedom of expression through sensationalism, cover-up, and falsification. For each case, they provide details of events, groups, and individuals; how authorities, media, and courts responded; and damage done to innocent victims by media reports. Throughout, the authors present parallel phenomena in the US (the Richard Jewell Olympic bombing travesty, the embedding of reporters with troops during wartime, etc.), thus justifying the subtitle. The culprits the authors identify for Japan's mismanagement of the public discourse--concentration of ownership, low professional standards, commercialism and sensationalism, and ultranationalism/ultrarightism--are the very same many believe derail American democracy. In this regard, the authors' "warnings to the West" are perhaps too late; nevertheless, everyone should ponder these sobering, well-researched, clearly written case studies. ^BSumming Up: Essential. All collections; all levels. J. A. Lent Temple University

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Adam Gamble is a writer and investigative reporter, and the author of In the Footsteps of Thoreau . He has served as publisher at On Cape Publications in Massachusetts since 1995, where he has produced some two-dozen books. During the three years of research that went into A Public Betrayed , he personally interviewed more than 150 individuals.

Takesato Watanabe is a professor of media ethics at Doshisha University in Kyoto and was a visiting scholar at Harvard University in 2001. He is the author of a dozen Japanese-language books, including Information Democracy and the People's Right to Communicate (2000). He is coauthor of the Encyclopedia of Media & Communication Studies (1999). His next book, The Media and Power Structure in Modern Japan, 1945 - 2000 , was published in English in 2005 through Harvard University's East Asia Monograph Series.

Ellis S. Krauss is a professor of Japanese politics and policymaking at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Broadcasting Politics in Japan and the coeditor of Beyond Bilateralism: U.S.-Japan Relations in the New Asia-Pacific and of Media and Politics in Japan .