Rant of the week: Japanese TV news

In general, I love the quirky rubbishness of Japanese TV, but the news is absolutely atrocious. Apart from NHK (the BBC equivalent), every channel presents the news in a manner similar to The Sun. If a bad guy (e.g. a representative of North Korea, or somebody accused of a serious crime) is shown on screen, it's invariably in slow-motion grayscale, with scary music and their name superimposed in an evil, flaming font. We're regularly shown scenes of victims' families weeping uncontrollablly and at length. Sometimes this weeping is due to the fact that the TV crew has tracked down the relatives of a murdered child, shoved a camera in their faces and started asking them horrifically insensitive questions until they start crying.

The other day I saw a story about a junior high school teacher who'd bullied one of his students and driven the kid to suicide. A pretty harrowing story, but then it really took a turn for the twisted. The parents of the child tricked the teacher into coming to their house, where the TV crew was lying in wait. The parents then forced him to assume the 'super-duper-apology' bowing position (knees and head on floor, arms outstretched) in front of a photo of their dead son, while they circled around him, mocking and humiliating him. "Why did you bully our child? Did it make you feel like a big man? Why did you kill him?".... ad nauseam.



God bless Huw Edwards and proper news.