ABSTRACT
For tangled historical reasons, journalism in Japan is a two-tiered affair. Weekly mass-circulation magazines fill the void in aggressive reporting left by the access-driven mainstream media. With the old citadels of print and broadcast media now crumbling, news-gathering is undergoing a potentially profound transition. This chapter asks several questions of interest to media scholars and journalists: What is the future of journalism in Japan; is it effective in monitoring abuses of power, despite its lowly ranking in global polls on media-freedom? And does the more confrontational journalism of Bunshun offer any lessons for declining media elsewhere? Focusing on the magazine’s politics entirely misses the point, says Shintani Manabu, the magazine’s former chief editor. Journalism in Japan, in particular, has been very much wedded to the project of nation-building.
