A Public Betrayed: An Inside Look at Japanese Media Atrocities and Their Warnings to the West »

In his new book Adam Gamble reveals how the Japanese media have dangerously overstepped their boundaries and distorted--even wiped out--honest news.

Library Journal

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. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.