ABSTRACT
Japanese news media professionals have worked hard to keep alive memories of Imperial Japan’s wartime military aggression and harsh colonial rule. A steady stream of newspaper articles and regular airing of television documentaries dwelling on the horrors of war and the humiliation of defeat have served to counterbalance attempts by Japan’s conservative nationalist political leaders to rewrite the country’s war-renouncing 1947 Constitution. But Japanese news professionals show their commitment to coming to terms with negative aspects of their country’s past not only through the normal work of journalists but also as activists, promoting the cause of historical reconciliation through exchanges with counterparts in neighbouring countries, organizing symposiums, conferring and receiving prizes, writing books and advising politicians. They are able to do all this because Japanese news reporting differs in its historical origins and moral-ethical self-image from the Western ideal of a consistently adversarial relationship between media and power.
