The survey below is of interest to journalists all over th world and you can give it a try as well. Go for it. Clark
Dear Weekly Spin subscriber,

Last year the Center for Media and Democracy issued our first annual
"Falsies Awards" to recognize the people and players responsible for
polluting the modern information environment.

For this year's Falsies Awards, we want you to help us select the
winners. We have posted a survey on our website, asking people to
rank this year's award nominees. We also provide space where you can
nominate additional names. Please take a few minutes to read the
survey and help identify he worst spinners and propagandists of 2005.
You can find the survey online at the following URL:

http://www.prwatch.org/survey/public/survey.php?name=falsies2005_copy

Thanks for your input, and stay tuned to www.prwatch.org for the
announcement later this month of this year's "Falsies Awards"
winners!

Sheldon Rampton
Research director, Center for Media and Democracy

Have a second survey on the web for you to do. It is similar to the first one but is different and would appriciate you doing it all again. Thanks Clark
STEP 1: Put your student card in the card reader attached to your computer.

STEP 2: Log in.

STEP 3: Double click on the icon for Internet Explorer. [It's conveniently located on the desktop.]

STEP 4: Type in the following web address in the address (or URL) field of Internet Explorer: http://tinyurl.com/9s2y5
[This URL is different from the one used in the first survey.]

STEP 5: Students answer the questions by selecting the appropriate menu item or point on the rating scales. There is very little that needs to be typed in this time so the time necessary for completion will be shorter.

STEP 6: Click on the 'NEXT' button to complete the survey.
PS You can do it in class time this Thur. if you'd like. CAR

Here's what news is about and what powerful people would like to stop. Some new vocabulary for you too. Clark
From The Weekley spin:
. THAT OLD CANARD LIBERAL BIAS
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6286824.html?display=Feature&referral=SUPP
"We were biased, all right - in favor of uncovering the news that
powerful people wanted to keep hidden," veteran journalist Bill
Moyers told Broadcasting & Cable. In an interview with the trade
publication, Moyers responds to accusations by the now chastened
Kenneth Tomlinson, the controversial former head of the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting who has close ties to the White House, that
he is the "exemplar of liberal PBS bias." Moyers added, "If
reporting on what's happening to ordinary people thrown overboard by
circumstances beyond their control and betrayed by Washington
officials is liberalism, I stand convicted. It is an old canard of
right-wing ideologues like Tomlinson to equate tough journalism with
liberalism. They hope to distract people from the message by trying
to discredit the messenger."
SOURCE: Broadcasting & Cable, November 28, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4231

How do you like this for a turn around?
| Bloggers create Press Plagiarist Of The Year Award |
| from the steal-this-website dept. |
| posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday December 03, @12:57 (The Media) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/03/1438224 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]mccalli writes "[1]The BBC is reporting that certain bloggers, fed up
of seeing their work just lifted by the mainstream press, have created
[2]The Press Plagiarist Of The Year award. Examples are given of national
newspapers simply cutting and pasting entire articles from web sites and
passing them off as their own."

Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=05/12/03/1438224

Links:
0. http://www.eruvia.org/
1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4484718.stm
2. http://5thnovember.blogspot.com/2005/11/press-plagiarist-of-year-award.html

A good article from the Village Voice, which is the alternate weekly paper from New York City, that I'd like you to read even though it is a bit long.

Press Clips
If Old Journalism Dies . . .
Where will new media get the news?
by Sydney H. Schanberg
November 29th, 2005 11:28 AM








Trailer trash: an Iraqi "mobile lab" that wasn't
photo: DOD photo
Chattering oracles are telling us that newspapers will die soon, as the Internet takes over. That may well be—and the Internet does carry wondrous potential for improving life (as well as voluminous drivel that used to be written on the walls of public toilets). But the puzzlement is, where will the new digital providers of information get their fresh news?

It is fresh news—daily, or at least weekly, news—that keeps citizens feeling connected to the decisions and events that alter their lives. And it is newspapers, and a handful of probing magazines, that provide most of the in-depth journalism that uncovers and analyzes those fast-moving decisions and events. Blogsters, please don't jump out of your pajamas—lots of you are doing valuable and admirable work keeping mainstream journalism on its toes. But serious journalism is labor-intensive and time-consuming and therefore requires large amounts of money and health benefits and pensions. The blogosphere has plenty of time, but as yet none of the other items.

So if and when newspapers fade into darkness, as the all-seeing oracles foretell, what will happen? Perhaps, in a future time of airborne pigs, altruism will suddenly infuse our culture, and money will descend, like manna, on the Internet to pay for the reporters to do the intensive journalism needed as a check on abusive power. And if altruism or labor-friendly corporate ideologies don't magically appear? The oracles are mostly silent on that eventuality. Maybe they think samizdat is the answer. Maybe many of them don't care.

I don't have any oracular solutions. My guess is that while serious reporting may not be delivered as often on paper made from trees, it will nonetheless live long and contribute to democracy in other delivery forms. This is so because it will always be propelled by abuses of power—and abuses of power are everlasting. It being the Thanksgiving season, I thought I would offer up, in thanks, some of the superior journalism I came across over the past few weeks.

Los Angeles Times, November 20: an impressive 6,400-word piece on an Iraqi informant code-named "Curveball." His unreliable statements to German intelligence officials about Iraq's germ warfare weapons were not only used but exaggerated by the Bush administration to justify invading Iraq in 2003. Curveball has been examined in earlier news reports, but the striking L.A. Times piece—by Bob Drogin and John Goetz—is more detailed and breaks new ground. The German authorities, who are still holding Curveball, said they told their American counterparts that the man was mentally unstable and his information mostly secondhand, but that the CIA ignored their multiple warnings and dismissed certain proofs that he had lied. The agency didn't admit error until May 2004, a year after the invasion. Both Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell used Curveball's phony statements about "mobile biological weapons labs" prominently in major war-drum speeches before the war. The Times article quotes one of the German officials saying of those speeches: "We were shocked. Mein Gott! We had always told them it was not proven. . . . It was not hard intelligence." I recommend reading the story start to finish.

The New York Times and The Washington Post, November 6: Both the Times' Douglas Jehl and the Post's Walter Pincus write stories about a different Iraqi informant, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, based on a Defense Intelligence Agency document recently declassified at the request of Michigan Democratic senator Carl Levin. Jehl's lead paragraph: "A top member of Al Qaeda in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons."
Gotham Uncovered

National Journal, November 22: Murray Waas reports that 10 days after the 9-11 attacks, "President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter." Waas reveals that Bush received the information on September 21, 2001, at his regular morning national security briefing of 30 to 45 minutes by the CIA, which also provided the president with a printed summary of the briefing points. The specific briefing, Waas writes, "was prepared at the request of the president, who was eager in the days following the terrorist attacks to learn all that he could about any possible connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda."

Rolling Stone, November 17: James Bamford, a highly regarded author who has spilled open the inner workings of the American intelligence community, writes a compelling saga about John Rendon, whose firm, the Rendon Group, "has made millions off government contracts since 1991, when it was hired by the CIA to help 'create the conditions for the removal of Hussein from power.' Working under this extraordinary transfer of secret authority, Rendon assembled a group of anti-Saddam militants, personally gave them their name—the Iraqi National Congress—and served as their media guru and senior adviser." Bamford says Rendon helped put Ahmad Chalabi at the helm of the INC. In the run-up to the Iraq war, Chalabi delivered to the Bush administration a series of Iraqi informants who claimed to have intelligence about Hussein's supposed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction—the purported threat that was the White House's major rationale for going to war. Bamford describes how this byzantine operation wove its way to Judith Miller of The New York Times and to an Australian Broadcasting Corporation correspondent.

The Nation, November 21: William Greider gives us a deep, insightful essay about the state of American journalism that goes beyond anything I've seen in recent times. It's titled "All the King's Media." I'll say no more; just read it.

On a concluding—and lighter—note, the White House, gripped in the fog of insanity that accompanies the crumbling of a failed regime, insisted that its spokesman Scott McClellan did not speak the words he spoke at an October 31 press briefing. David Gregory of NBC News had said to McClellan, in laying the basis for a question about the Plamegate scandal, that "we know that" both Karl Rove and the indicted I. Lewis Libby had conversations with reporters about CIA operative Valerie Plame.

McClellan replied: "That's accurate." Transcripts from Congressional Quarterly and Federal News Service show it that way. So does the video. The White House is standing by its deranged rewrite, quoting McClellan as having said: "I don't think that's accurate." See Joe Strupp's November 9 story on the Editor & Publisher website (editorandpublisher.com). Also see the video, which is linked in the story.

It all depends on what you mean by the word truth.

Here is an example of fictional news that I was talking about yesterday in class:

U.S. Is Said to Pay to Plant Articles in Iraq Papers
By JEFF GERTH and SCOTT SHANE
A covert campaign is under way to plant paid propaganda in
the Iraqi news media and pay Iraqi journalists monthly
stipends.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/politics/01propaganda.html?th&emc=th

Hello everyone here are the survey instructions that I would like you to take. Please try doing it in the next couple of days.
STEP 1: Put your student card in the card reader attached to your computer.

STEP 2: Log in.

STEP 3: Double click on the icon for Internet Explorer. [It's conveniently located on the desktop.]
STEP 4: Type in the following web address in the address (or URL) field of Internet Explorer: http://tinyurl.com/d9wkf

STEP 5: Answer questions 1-3 by making choices from among the items in the pop-up menus. For questions 4-10, the answers will need to by typed into the text boxes.
STEP 6: Click on the 'NEXT' button to complete the survey.

STEP 7: Congratulate yourself on a job well done.

Japanese held over fake news site

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Police have arrested a former computer programmer for allegedly publishing a fabricated news article on a fake Yahoo Japan news Web site saying that China had invaded the Japanese island of Okinawa.

Tokyo Metropolitan Police department arrested Takahiro Yamamoto, 30, Monday on suspicion of violating patent laws, a police spokesman said on condition of anonymity, citing departmental policy.

He said Yamamoto allegedly accredited the fake article to Kyodo News Agency and published it on an Internet site that he had designed to look like Yahoo! Japan Corp's news site.

The story was written in Japanese with a dateline "America, Oct. 18 Kyodo" followed by a headline saying "Chinese Military invades Okinawa," the police said.

Police had confiscated Yamamoto's personal computer and analyzed the data stored in it.

Kyodo said it and Yahoo had filed complaints to police in October.

The Web site was accessed 66,000 times until it was taken down on October 19, Kyodo said, quoting police.

Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo is one of the world's largest Internet portal operators, with some 345 million people using its mix of search engines, news sites and online shopping.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[Japan Times EDITORIAL]
Thanks for a thankless job
Most of the time, let's face it, journalists just do not get good press. The very word "reporter" is often used

or interpreted as a smear. Newspaper readers and television viewers alike regularly complain to news

organizations about their employees' bias, incompetence and bad grammar. And for all their rhetoric about press

freedom, the powerful too often treat journalists as, at best, a kind of malodorous underclass -- vaguely

necessary people whom they prefer to see as little of as possible. At worst, they treat them like criminals or

subversives, as the world was reminded again last Tuesday when the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

handed out this year's International Press Freedom Awards in New York.
[MORE] ->
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?ed20051127a1.htm

Controversy and Conflict: here is how it looks in America these days.
Journalist, Cover Thyself
Illustration by The New York Times

Tireless media critic Howard Kurtz writes for The Washington Post and broadcasts on CNN, raising conflict questions.

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By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: November 21, 2005

Here's something you do not see every day: a newspaper reporter interrogating his own boss - on live television yet.

Howard Kurtz, the media writer for The Washington Post, posed tough questions yesterday for nearly eight minutes to Leonard Downie Jr., The Post's executive editor, on a program where Mr. Kurtz is host, CNN's "Reliable Sources." The subject was the revelation last week that Bob Woodward, The Post's investigative reporter, had not disclosed the fact that a senior official in the Bush administration leaked the name of a C.I.A. operative to him more than two years ago.
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CNN

Howard Kurtz, left, a Washington Post reporter, questioning his own executive editor, Leonard Downie Jr., over the controversy at his paper.

Mr. Kurtz's program then featured a discussion with three panelists, one of whom assailed Mr. Woodward. (Mr. Kurtz had invited him to be on the program, but Mr. Woodward booked himself instead on CNN's "Larry King Live.")

You've heard of reality television? This might be reality newspaper. It is "The Washington Post Live," and it is playing out on CNN, thanks in part to Mr. Kurtz and his highly unusual double role as media writer for The Post and media referee for the cable network.

In the last few years, with the rise of blogs and a rich supply of scandals at news organizations, including The New York Times, the media have come under intense scrutiny. And many news outlets have turned a critical eye on themselves - a tricky matter rife with conflict that raises the question of whether anyone can report fully and fairly on his or her own employer, particularly for public consumption.

Few have lived in the cross-hairs of these conflicts more visibly than Mr. Kurtz, who has owned the media beat at The Post since 1990 and been host of "Reliable Sources" since 1998.

He draws salaries from two of the most important media companies in the country: CNN, which is owned by Time Warner, and The Post, which is owned by The Washington Post Company. Such arrangements do not violate Post policy. In fact, The Post has quite liberal rules regarding extracurricular work by its reporters and editors.

As Mr. Downie put it in an online chat last week on the newspaper's Web site, "We think there is value in having our best journalism reach as many people as possible through our newspaper, this Web site, television and radio appearances and books."

He may never have imagined that one person might do all those jobs at once. But Mr. Kurtz, 52, does - redefining the term cottage industry and raising questions about potential conflicts of interest.

"It's very odd to look at," said Jack Shafer, media critic for Slate.com. "This is the duck-billed platypus of journalism, an egg-laying mammal with fur - it's just something very bizarre."

Mr. Downie said in an interview that he was comfortable with Mr. Kurtz's dual roles because they were disclosed in a tag line in The Post and on the screen on CNN.

David Bohrman, vice president of CNN and Washington bureau chief, said that Mr. Kurtz was "as tough as anybody" on the network, adding that his dual roles at The Post and CNN served as a useful "check and balance," because if he were "throttled or stifled at one place, he has another platform to get it out."

Mickey Kaus, who is a blogger on Slate.com and a frequent critic of Mr. Kurtz, says that he has been an honest reporter and is equally tough on The Post and CNN, but that his dual positions create an inherent institutional conflict that exists regardless of how fair he may be and how much he discloses his various roles.

"The conflict is that he works for one of the giant corporations that he covers - CNN - and that corporation has made his career," Mr. Kaus said. If he makes CNN mad, he said, it could hurt that career. "Len Downie is in denial about it," Mr. Kaus added.

Mr. Kurtz brushes off charges of conflict of interest and says the proof of his independence is evident in his work.

"The biggest conflict I face," he said, "is writing about The Washington Post, which I do periodically and, I think, rather aggressively. I don't think you can find a media writer in the country who has taken on his own organization as many times and on as many difficult issues as I have. And when I write about CNN, which I have also not hesitated to criticize, we disclose that at the paper."

Where the action is - where the money is -:


By ELIZABETH JENSEN
Published: November 14, 2005

Journalism students at Ohio State University expected to get a real-world lesson in competition this school year, courtesy of two media entrepreneurs who see national business potential in taking on student-run campus newspapers. But with the rollout of the new paper called U Weekly, they are getting a lesson in campus politics as well.

When classes resumed in Columbus, Ohio, on Sept. 21, the university's 124-year-old student daily, The Lantern, had a professional rival in U Weekly, a 20,000-circulation, full-color tabloid laden with entertainment articles. The Lantern, a mostly black-and-white small broadsheet offers a more usual mixture of campus and national news stories.

For Wayne T. Lewis, 34, chief executive of the privately owned University Media Group, and his partner, Clark Gaines, U Weekly is their biggest bet so far that there is an underserved niche market on college campuses, with enough beer, bar and bookstore advertising to support a rollout near other public colleges next fall.

But what had seemed to be an amicable relationship with Ohio State went sour days before the start-up of U Weekly, Mr. Lewis said in an interview. By his account, the university reneged on an agreement to allow him to distribute the paper at 150 indoor locations on campus, reducing the number of racks to 63.

Ray Catalino, the manager since 1989 of The Lantern, minimized the matter. "I don't think there was any cutback from the university," he said.

Mr. Lewis responded to the reduced distribution with what he called "garish black boxes" at 25 outside locations, on public property, and hired students to give out the paper.

"We're getting into students' hands, but it's costing more," he said. The two sides continue to talk, he said, adding that he expected an amicable resolution soon.

Despite the chilly welcome, Mr. Lewis and Mr. Gaines, who is 29, said they saw national potential in marketing to 18-to-26-year-olds, as distinct from the wider 18-to-34-year-old group that alternative weeklies commonly seek.

"Major media companies are screaming to get young readers," Mr. Lewis said, but 18-year-olds and 30-year-olds often have markedly different interests. "We feel that the young audience wants that young content."

The two of them are scouting other public universities for an expansion next fall, provided they can raise enough capital. For that, they are being advised by a consultant, Henry K. Wurzer, a former Hearst and Tribune Company executive.

"In my career, I've read countless business plans," Mr. Wurzer said, "and this is one of the most dynamic yet realistic plans that I've read."

The Lantern, written and edited by students with a weekday circulation of 28,000 (Ohio State has 51,000 students), is supported with advertising and has been profitable in 6 of the last 10 years, Mr. Catalino said. It is an important part of the university communications department curriculum, with students required to write for it, without pay, for one quarter. Student editors at The Lantern are paid and autonomous, and free to reject the class work for publication.

This required course work, though, has raised the question of whether students in the Lantern news-writing class can work for U Weekly. Sonya Humes, a communications department faculty member who advises The Lantern, cited existing conflict-of-interest guidelines that effectively prohibit such overlap. Nonetheless, she said in an interview, the university is trying to devise alternatives for students who choose to remain on U Weekly's staff.

In an e-mail message to students, Ms. Humes called U Weekly "a very aggressive push by an outside corporation." She maintained that her only goal was to protect "student editorial control" at The Lantern while adding, "Competition in journalism is good because it raises the bar and gets folks thinking about how to differentiate publications from others."

Columbus is a far more competitive market than Mr. Lewis faced in 1997 when he founded Tiger Weekly at his alma mater, Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. There, his now-established 17,000-circulation paper is the only alternative weekly. In 2004, he and Mr. Gaines started Wildcat Weekly at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

Columbus already had two alternative weeklies providing lively arts and music coverage to both students and older readers. The Other Paper prints 53,000 copies, while the money-losing 45,000-circulation Columbus Alive is being acquired by the city's daily newspaper, The Columbus Dispatch.

"There's only so much money here and the market is pretty tight," Mr. Catalino of The Lantern said.

Mr. Lewis said U Weekly's return rate was a low 6 percent, and it had found enough advertisers to support a 40-page paper, including national beer brands, bars and video stores.

One is the Frog Bear and Wild Boar bar. "The layout is very nice," said Randy Haffey, the bar's marketing director, "and there's not a porn section in the back."

The bar also advertises in The Lantern, but Mr. Haffey said the college paper "has not changed, it has not updated itself, it hasn't done anything new in the last couple years," adding "it's very expensive," with a full-page ad running not quite double the cost of one in U Weekly.

Mr. Catalino replied that for his advertisers, The Lantern was a better deal. "For what you are getting," he said, "we are not at all expensive."

Japanese culture? Yes!
[0]jonerik writes to tell us The Associated press is running an article
stating that several American newspapers are going to [1]start carrying
manga with their normal arsenal of comics. The papers feel that this will
help boost their readership amongst a younger audience. The two strips
that made the cut are [2]Van Von Hunter, and [3]Peach Fuzz which are both
created by American writer/illustrators and are being distributed by
[4]Universal Press Syndicate.

Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=05/11/09/2136225

Links:
0. mailto:jonerik@@gis.net
1. http://abcnews.go.com/International/print?id=1289576
2. http://www.vanvonhunter.com/
3. http://www.tokyopop.com/dbpage.php?propertycode=PCH&categorycode=BMG
4. http://www.uexpress.com/

This is from Technology Review published by MIT and is a good example of both a tech. story and and interview.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Cellular Life in Japan

Anthropologist Mizuko Ito studies Japan's mobile-phone culture and warns against extrapolating from Japan's tech development.

By Wade Roush

To imagine how Americans might be using mobile devices such as cell phones in the future, just look at Japanese youth. At least that's the conventional wisdom (think Wired magazine's long-running "Japanese Schoolgirl Watch" column).

But the dynamic may not be so simple. While Japan is indisputably a hothouse of innovation in mobile technology, the way Japanese consumers actually use cell phones and other mobile paraphernalia is an outcome of historical and sociological factors unique to Japan, argues anthropologist Mizuko Ito, one of the world's foremost authorities on the comparative anthropology and sociology of mobile device usage. "I don't think it's appropriate to say any [one country] is defining technology evolution," Ito says.

A research scientist in the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Ito has a joint appointment at Keio University in Tokyo. She's also the lead editor of Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, a collection of scholarly essays recently released by MIT Press.

Technologyreview.com's Executive Web Editor, Wade Roush, interviewed Ito on November 8.

Technology Review: How long have you been studying the way people in Japan use mobile phones, and what got you interested?

Mizuko Ito: I first got interested in it about six years ago now. I went to do some post-doctoral work in the late '90s, and my research topic was how young people were using new media. For the boys, I was sort of gravitating toward gaming studies, but what was so interesting at the time was that the mobile phone was just coming into its heyday in Japan, and it was a technology use being driven by young girls. It's fairly unusual that teenage girls are seen as technology innovators, so it was a really attractive case for me for a lot of reasons. The gender aspects were interesting, and it was a different type of technology from gaming.

TR: You have dual academic appointments at USC and in Japan, at Keio University. You seem to be in a opportune position to do cross-cultural analyses of mobile technologies. How do you split your time?

MI: I first started my appointment at Keio when I was first living in Japan. I moved back to the U.S. a little over three years ago, to the research center here at USC. Now mostly I spend my time at USC during the academic years and my summers in Japan. The reason it works is I have some really good colleagues in Japan who manage the research, and we are really close collaborators with them, so even though I've been away I'm able to stay involved.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Cellular Life in Japan

Continued from Page 1

By Wade Roush

TR: One of the messages of your new book is that the people in different countries use cell phones differently depending partly on the way the technology is rolled out, and partly on the culture of each country. Do you feel that there's a misperception out there about cell phone culture in Japan that you and your collaborators were trying to correct?

MI: In conversations about technology in Japan, the assumption is that there is something inherent in a particular technology that makes it get taken up in a particular way, and it's not inherently culturally specific. But at the same time, if there is something that seems different from how other countries have taken up a technology, it gets attributed to the cultural strangeness of the Japanese, i.e., if the Japanese don't use cell phones like people in the U.S. it must be something cultural. I'm an anthropologist and I like cultural explanations, too. But it's important to look at historical, economic, and other factors playing into it.

For example, it would be really easy to say that the reason Japanese people like text messaging over voice calling is because the Japanese are inherently more polite, or they don't want to disrupt the environment. And that's probably part of the explanation. But there's also a lot of important historical reasons why that modality of communication has become so dominant.

The early history of pager technology, for example, had a very strong effect on how text messaging rolled out to other services like the mobile phone. [So many people used pagers for text-messaging before the spread of wireless telephony that texting was one of the first features the Japanese demanded in their cell phones. -Ed.] It's a little bit too simple to say that any one of those factors is totally determining. The thing I was trying to resist is using culture as a residual category for the otherwise unexplainable.

TR: Your book includes many essays by Japanese scholars. What drives sociological research on mobile devices in Japan? Is there a sense that the way teens and adults use mobile phones is a burning social question?

MI: I think the "moral panic" has calmed down a lot since the period in the late '90s when it was really a new phenomena...That term actually comes from Folk Devils and Moral Panics, a book by Stanley Cohen that was sort of a sociological work tracking how, whenever there's a new phenomenon in youth culture, there's this period where the press takes up these issues in a particular way. The usual pattern is that the activities of a relatively extreme minority of the youth population are generalized to the behavior of youth as a whole.

That definitely happened with mobile phones in Japan. Many people would say the mobile phone had an augmenting or maybe even a determining effect on the emergence of teen girl street culture.

Then there was the issue of manners and usage in public space, and I think that issue has really gotten resolved more or less, unlike in the U.S., where people are still working out the issue of when it's appropriate to make a voice call. That's totally disappeared as the subject of moral concern, partly because it's been successfully regulated.  The youth culture issues are inherently more complex, because there will always be a 'youth problem' that society is grappling with.

TR: Another theme in the volume is that people in Japan seem to use their mobile phones to strengthen their existing social connections within a fairly small group of intimates -- whereas in the U.S., for example, people tend to use the Internet to look outward and communicate with many more people than they usually would.

MI: I think the findings are mainly showing that most [Japanese] kids use their phones most of the time to keep in touch with a close and existing social group. There is a relatively significant minority of kids who use the phones to get outside of that network. These tend to be kids who had their social network handed down to them. It's less than 10 percent, but they're important.

If you look at the technical layer, mobile phones are definitely optimized for intimate, interpersonal communication, whereas the Internet is broader. The mobile phone is moving in that direction, but it's obviously still point-to-point communication.

I'm not really sure if this is an historically specific or culturally specific kind of trend. The fact that for most Japanese kids, their first point of access to the Internet is through the mobile phone, not the PC, is probably having a lot of subtle effects on how that networking is happening. But the concept that it's allowing kids in Japan to break new ground socially? The research on that is probably more conservative. I'm just starting up some research in that area.

TR: Is there any way in which people in the United States should feel that they are "behind" Japan when it comes to cell phone technology?

MI: I think one of the things that we were trying to argue in the book is that there isn't a single trajectory [for technology development]. If you look at Japan, South Korea, and the U.S., their technology trajectories have been completely different. That's where you get an interesting opportunity for comparative sociology.

In the U.S., obviously the PC-based Internet has been the dominant information technology. South Korea is interesting because you see the layering of technologies -- they are ahead in just about everything. But all three of these countries are outliers, in some sense. I don't think it's appropriate to say any of them are defining technology evolution. They represent three quite disparate ways in which information infrastructures have been rolled out.

Japan is interesting in that, unlike South Korea, it hasn't been the leader in broadband and network technology. The reason it's ahead in the mobile space is that it's optimized for usage in that space. It's still an advanced information ecology and yet it doesn't have the same widespread broadband access. The government isn't paying the same attention to certain forms of broadband wireless deployment.

The U.S. is an incubator for advanced PC Internet technology, and Japan is at the other end of the spectrum. The reason the Japanese are doing more diverse and cool things with their mobile phones is because they're depending on them more as their primary information devices. It will continue to be an incubator for interesting mobile technologies, but is certainly not the site were you should look for everything IT.

Where do the media get money from? Advertising which pays for the full operation of the paper and makes a profit for the owners. No money no reporters ect.
- TECHNOLOGY -

Google Wants to Dominate Madison Avenue, Too
By SAUL HANSELL
This year Google will sell more advertising than any
newspaper chain, magazine publisher or television network.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/business/yourmoney/30google.html?th&emc=th

Well Junko Shinkawa and Mayu Sasakura both have sent me an audio file. Great job! All of you should give it a try. Send it to carsurf@dragon.email.ne.jp. Good Luck. Clark

Just a reminder for everyone that the Asahi Newspaper Tour will be on December the 9th and we should meet at 12 noon on that day at the main gate at the university. Hope to see you all there. Clark

Here is a scholarship to study in Canada all expenses paid:
Queen’s University
Office of Admissions
Gordon Hall
Kingston, ON
K7L 3N6
THE PRINCE TAKAMADO VISITING STUDENT SCHOLARSHIP
Application Form
Queen’s University has lost a distinguished alumnus and good friend with the untimely passing of His Imperial Highness Prince Takamado (1954-2002). During his years at Queen’s, Prince Takamado embraced the opportunity to learn, eager to master the English language and understand Canadian culture. Upon his return to Japan, Prince Takamado strengthened his connection to Canada, becoming a patron of the Canada-Japan Society, and promoting business and cultural links between Canada and Japan. In 1992, Queen’s University awarded His Imperial Highness an honorary degree, in recognition of his major contribution to the mutual understanding and appreciation of the cultures of the peoples of Japan and Canada.
The Prince Takamado Visiting Student Scholarship at Queen’s University is awarded to a second or third-year student of Japanese nationality (citizen) who is currently enrolled in a Japanese university, and who will study at Queen’s University on a Letter of Permission from their home university. Application should be made to Admission Services by 25 March. Admission Services will forward all applications from qualified applicants to the Student Awards Office. Value: Variable – Generally between $25,000 and $30,000 (Canadian Dollars), this will include tuition, books and supplies, and basic living expenses (including room and board and one return economy flight home) based on guidelines established by Queen’s University. A guaranteed residence room in Harkness International Hall will be available to the recipient if he/she chooses on campus accommodations.
Queen’s University is honoured to join with the Canadian Embassy in Japan in establishing The Prince Takamado Visiting Student Scholarship at Queen’s University – a fitting tribute to a loyal alumnus who dedicated so much of his life to fostering a strong relationship between Canada and Japan.

Here is Al Gore's asssesment of the modern media:

. AL GORE'S CODE RED
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/26494/
"It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public
discourse," former U.S. Vice President Al Gore told the We Media
Conference in New York. "Something has gone basically and badly
wrong in the way America's fabled 'marketplace of ideas' now
functions." Gore cited the dominance and poor quality of television
as a main cause: "Clearly, the purpose of television news is no
longer to inform the American people or serve the public interest.
It is to 'glue eyeballs to the screen' in order to build ratings and
sell advertising. ... Just look at what's on: The Robert Blake
trial. The Laci Peterson tragedy. The Michael Jackson trial. The
Runaway Bride. The search in Aruba. The latest twist in various
celebrity couplings. ... More importantly, notice what is not on:
the global climate crisis, the nation's fiscal catastrophe, the
hollowing out of America's industrial base, and a long list of other
serious public questions that need to be addressed by the American
people." Gore, whose new business venture, Current TV, airs
"viewer-created content," also blasted television for lacking "true
interactivity."
SOURCE: AlterNet, October 6, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4057

-----------------------------------------------------------------
* Thoughts For Today -- On Journalists & Journalism (part 3)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a
distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the
truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.
- Graham Greene

Journalism is organized gossip.
- Edward Eggleston

The lowest form of popular culture -- lack of information,
misinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most
people's lives -- has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary
Americans are being stuffed with garbage.
- Carl Bernstein

Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one
world, and life seen in the newspapers another.
- Gilbert K. Chesterton

I see journalists as the manual workers, the laborers of the word. Journalism can only be literature when it is passionate.
- Marguerite Duras

Journalist: a person without any ideas but with an ability to express
them; a writer whose skill is improved by a deadline: the more time he
has, the worse he writes.
- Karl Kraus

What a squalid and irresponsible little profession it is. Nothing
prepares you for how bad Fleet Street really is until it craps on you
from a great height.
- Ken Livingstone

If a person is not talented enough to be a novelist, not smart enough
to be a lawyer, and his hands are too shaky to perform operations, he
becomes a journalist.
- Norman Mailer

Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice
what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is
a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or
loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.
- Janet Malcolm

The real news is bad news.
- Marshall McLuhan

I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists
could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with
the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the
truth.
- Reinhold Niebuhr

In America journalism is apt to be regarded as an extension of history:
in Britain, as an extension of conversation.
- Anthony Sampson

If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600
people -- including me -- would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to
Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in
the context of professional journalism.
- Hunter S. Thompson

The facts fairly and honestly presented; truth will take care of itself.
- William Allen White

In the real world, nothing happens at the right place at the right
time. It is the job of journalists and historians to correct that.
- Mark Twain

This is a very disconcerting trend in America and could have reprocussions everywere. Think about it. Does this happen here?

. STEPPING UP THE ATTACK ON GREEN ACTIVISTS
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/26077/
"A remorseless rapist in Hamilton County, Ohio is sentenced to 15
years in prison for beating and raping a 57-year-old woman," writes
Kelly Hearn. "An environmental activist in California is sentenced
to 22 years and 8 months for burning three SUVs at a car dealership
after taking precautions to harm no lives. The disparity helps
illustrates what animal rights and environmental groups say is an
expanding Orwellian attack on American environmentalism being waged
under the pretext of eco-terrorism." On CounterPunch, Jeffrey St.
Clair writes, "Armed with the bulging array of new police and
surveillance powers handed the agency in the wake of 9/11, the FBI
is now free to prowl unfettered by even the thinnest strands of
constitutional due process through the lives, email and bank
accounts of activists trying to stop chemical plants from flushing
toxins into their water. ... On FoxNews, blinking eco-terrorist
alerts have replaced Tom Ridge's color-coded threat level."
SOURCE: AlterNet, September 30, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4038

Pod casting seems to be one of the latest things. You download MP3 sound files and then listen to then or you can stream them live from an iPod or your computer. Here is a discussion that will help your listening and is of interest from a Journalistic point of view:

Suffragette Journalists at BlogHer 2005 (3.0)
---------------------------------------
The discussion about whether bloggers are journalists is one that inspires
heated opinions. In this conversation from BlogHer, several blogger/journalists
discuss the relationship between blogging and so-called traditional journalism.
Moderator Lisa Stone asks Anastasia Goodstein, Chris Nolan and Evelyn Rodriguez
to share their experiences of the relationship between independent online
publishing and traditional media.

http://ipost.com/rd/9z1znl513j9fjl1eog26p51jietsnnlt57un48enc40

Everybody should read over the following carefully:
What is Plagiarism?

Definition
1. Plagiarism is defined as "Passing off someone else's work as your own".

2. It happens if you copy somebody else's work instead of doing your own.

3. It also happens in those cases where people actually buy essays instead of doing the work themselves.

4. Schools, colleges, and universities regard this as a serious offence - and they often have stiff penalties for anyone found guilty.

5. Most people at school level call this 'cheating' or 'copying' - and they know it is wrong.

6. The problem is that at college or university, you are expected to use and write about other people's work - so the issue of plagiarism becomes more complex.

7. There are also different types and different degrees of plagiarism - and it is often difficult to know whether you are breaking the rules or not.

8. Let's start off by making it clear that all the following can be counted as plagiarism.


Plagiarism

• Copying directly from a text, word-for-word

• Using an attractive phrase or sentence you have found somewhere

• Using text downloaded from the Internet

• Paraphrasing the words of a text very closely

• Borrowing statistics from another source or person

• Copying from the essays or the notes of another student

• Downloading or copying pictures, photographs, or diagrams without acknowledging your sources


Why is this so complex?
9. The answer is - because in your work at college or university level you are supposed to discuss other people's ideas. These will be expressed in the articles and books they have written. But you have to follow certain conventions.

10. Plus - at the same time - you will be asked to express your own arguments and opinions. You therefore have two tasks - and it is sometimes hard to combine them in a way which does not break the rules. Many people are not sure how much of somebody else's work they can use.

11. Sometimes plagiarism can happen by accident, because you use an extract from someone else's work - but you forget to show that you are quoting.

12. This is the first thing you should learn about plagiarism - and how to avoid it. Always show that you are quoting somebody else's work by enclosing the extract in [single] quote marks.

In 1848 there was an outbreak of revolutionary risings throughout Europe, which Marx described as 'the first stirrings of proletarian defiance' in a letter to his collaborator, Frederick Engels.

13. This also sometimes happens if you are stuck for ideas, and you quote a passage from a textbook. You might think the author expresses the idea so well, that you can't improve on it.

14. This is plagiarism - unless you say and show that you are quoting someone else's work. Here's how to do it:

This painting is generally considered one of his finest achievements. As John Richardson suggests: 'In Guernica, Picasso lifts the concept of art as political propaganda to its highest level in the twentieth century'.

Academic conventions
15. Why do colleges and universities make such a big fuss about this issue? The answer to this is that they are trying to keep up important conventions in academic writing.

16. The conventions involve two things at the same time. They are the same as your two tasks:

• You are developing your own ideas and arguments and learning to express them.

• You are showing that you have learned about and can use other people's work.

17. These conventions allow you to use other people's work to illustrate and support your own arguments - but you must be honest about it. You must show which parts are your own work, and which parts belong to somebody else.

18. You also need to show where the information comes from. This is done by using a system of footnotes or endnotes where you list details of the source of your information.

19. The conventions of referencing and citation can become very complex. If you need guidance on this issue, have a look at our detailed guidance notes on the subject. What follows is the bare bones.

20. In an essay on a novel by D.H. Lawrence for example, you might argue that his work was influenced by Thomas Hardy. You could support this claim by quoting a literary critic:

Lawrence's characters have a close relationship with their physical environment - showing possibly the influence of Hardy, who Walter Allen points out was 'his fundamental precursor in the English tradition' (1)

21. Notice that you place a number in brackets immediately after the quotation. The source of this quotation is given as a footnote at the bottom of the page, or as an endnote on a separate sheet at the end of your essay.

22. The note gives full details of the source - as follows:

Notes

1. Walter Allen, The English Novel, London: Chatto and Windus, 1964, p.243



Do's and Don'ts
23. You should avoid composing an essay by stringing together accounts of other people's work. This occurs when an essay is written in this form:

Critic X says that this idea is ' ... long quotation ...', whereas Commentator Y's opinion is that this idea is ' ... long quotation ...', and Critic Z disagrees completely, saying that the idea is ' ... long quotation ...'.

24. This is very close to plagiarism, because even though you are naming the critics and showing that you are quoting them - there is nothing of your own argument being offered here.

25. If you are stuck for ideas, don't be tempted to copy long passages from other people's work. The reason is - it's really easy to spot. Your tutor will notice the difference in style straight away.

Copyright and plagiarism
26. Copyright can be quite a complex issue - but basically it means the 'right to copy' a piece of work. This right belongs to the author of the work - the person who writes it - or a publisher.

27. When a piece of writing is published in a book or on the Web, you can read it as much as you wish - but the right to copy it belongs to the author or the author's publisher.

28. Nobody will worry if you quote a few words, or a few lines. This is regarded as what is called 'fair use'. People in the world of education realise that because quotation is so much a part of academic writing, it would be ridiculous to insist that you should seek permission to quote every few words.

29. In fact there is an unwritten convention that you can quote up to 5% of a work without seeking permission. If this was from a very long work however, you would still be wise to seek permission.

30. This permission is only for your own personal study purposes - as part of your course work or an assignment. If you wished to use the materials for any other purpose, you would need to seek permission.

31. Copyright also extends beyond writing to include diagrams, maps, drawings, photographs, and other forms of graphic presentation. In some cases it can even include the layout of a document.

Plagiarism and the Web
32. The World Wide Web has made millions and millions of pages of information available to anybody with access to the Internet. But even though this appears to be 'free' - copyright restrictions still apply. If someone writes and publishes a Web page, the copyright belongs to that person.

33. If you wish to use material you have located on the Web, you should acknowledge your sources in the same way that you would material quoted from a printed book.

34. Keep in mind too that information on a Web page might have been put there by someone who does not hold copyright to it.


What follows is the rather strictly-worded code
on plagiarism from a typical university handbook.
Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the theft or appropriation of someone else's work without proper acknowledgement, presenting the materials as if they were one's own. Plagiarism is a serious academic offence and the consequences are severe.

a) Course work, dissertations, and essays submitted for assessment must be the student's own work, unless in the case of group projects a joint effort is expected and indicated as such.

b) Unacknowledged direct copying from the work of another person, or the unacknowledged close paraphrasing of somebody else's work, is called plagiarism and is a serious offence, equated with cheating in examinations. This applies to copying both from other student's work and from published sources such as books, reports or journal articles.

c) Use of quotations or data from the work of others is entirely acceptable, and is often very valuable provided that the source of the quotation or data is given. Failure to provide a source or put quotation marks around material that is taken from elsewhere gives the appearance that the comments are ostensibly one's own. When quoting word-for-word from the work of another person quotation marks or indenting (setting the quotation in from the margin) must be used and the source of the quoted material must be acknowledged.

d) Paraphrasing when the original statement is still identifiable and has no acknowledgement, is plagiarism. A close paraphrase of another person's work must have an acknowledgement to the source. It is not acceptable to put together unacknowledged passages from the same or from different sources link these together with a few words or sentences of your own and changing a few words from the original text: this is regarded as over-dependence on other sources, which is a form of plagiarism.

e) Direct quotation from an earlier piece of the student's own work, if unattributed, suggests that the work is original, when in fact it is not. The direct copying of one's own writings qualifies as plagiarism if the fact that the work has been or is to be presented elsewhere is not acknowledged.

f) Sources of quotations used should be listed in full in a bibliography at the end of the piece of work and in a style required by the student's department.

g) Plagiarism is a serious offence and will always result in imposition of a penalty. In deciding upon the penalty the University will take into account factors such as the year of study, the extent and proportion of the work that has been plagiarised and the apparent intent of the student. the penalties that can be imposed range from a minimum of zero mark for the work (without allowing resubmission) through to downgrading of degree class, the award of a lesser qualification (eg a Pass degree rather than Honours, a certificate rather than a diploma) to disciplinary measures such as suspension or expulsion.

Please read this article. This is a problem not only here in Japan but everywhere.
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Scandal claims key Asahi, industry exec
The Asahi Shimbun's executive adviser steps down from his post and resigns as chairman of

the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association over a faked news report involving a

now-fired reporter.
[MORE] ->
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050908a3.htm

Well I know it is hot and damp,humid, muggy but it is also wonderful in the evening. I though you would like to think about this as a 'what if':- ON THIS DAY -

On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis, which had just delivered key components of the Hiroshima atomic bomb to the Pacific island of Tinian, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Only 316 out of 1,196 men survived the sinking and shark-infested waters.

Hi hope you all have a nice summer. We'll talk about this one in the fall:
Two held in slaying of homeless man

Two people were arrested Saturday on suspicion of beating a homeless man to death last week in a park in Sumida Ward, Tokyo, police said.

Naoto Yoshida, 20, and a 19-year-old male whose name is withheld because he is a minor, are suspected of kicking a man believed to be Masamitsu Katori, 64, in the head and chest while he was sleeping in the park at around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The man died from loss of blood, police said.

"I got carried away after drinking alcohol," the 19-year-old was quoted as saying.

"I didn't mean to kill but I kicked the man's head," Yoshida allegedly said.

The two suspects, who attend night school, had been drinking near the park and were on their way home.

They threw their shoes away because they left bloody footsteps in the park, police said.

The Japan Times: July 17, 2005

Hi I'd like you the check this out:[NATIONAL NEWS]
U.N. calls for antidiscrimination law
A United Nations-appointed independent investigator says the government urgently needs to acknowledge the deep discrimination in Japan against minorities, Korean and Chinese residents and other foreigners.
[MORE] ->
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050712a1.htm
and....what do you think?

Hi I thought that you should read this from the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. If you are not familiar with the issues here ask me about it in the next class and we can talk about it. It's important. Clark

Kids, don't fall for 'free press' hype


July 8, 2005

BY CAROL MARIN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Advertisement



Just about every week, the phone rings with an earnest, young journalism student at the other end asking what he or she needs to do to become a reporter. Some have already given it a great deal of thought. Most have not.


For a while now, I've toyed with the notion of one day writing a book, a kind of road map for would-be reporters on some of the obstacles ahead. I'm not sure what I'd call it. Maybe, Hey, Kid, So You Wanna Be A Reporter? I was forced to abandon my original title, News Reporting For Dummies, after a media-bashing friend of mine sneered that it was redundant.

Lesson No. 1: Even your friends will despise you.


Reporters have long since lost the luster of the glory days of Woodward and Bernstein and Watergate. Journalists, in the eye of the public, have gone from swashbuckling to scum-sucking. Some of our wounds are self-inflicted. The Jayson Blair affair at the New York Times and the CBS/Dan Rather case of questionable documents are just two of too many.

But don't for a second doubt that genuine, hard news reporting is under siege. It is. Just ask Judith Miller, who was jailed Wednesday for refusing to reveal her sources for a story she never even published. Or better yet, ask the Bush administration, which has no compunction about recruiting public relations people to pose as reporters in taxpayer-subsidized video news releases that were peddled as "news reports." That's the same Bush administration that is classifying documents at breakneck speed to keep actual vs. manufactured information out of the hands of the public and the press.

Lesson No. 2: Judith Miller


Anybody who thinks they want to be a reporter should be required to read every single word of the opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia No. 04-3138. That's the one that ordered Miller and Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper to reveal their confidential sources to a federal grand jury.

Pay particular attention to pages 72 through 78. Why? Because they're blank, that's why. Even experienced constitutional lawyers are flabbergasted by this. But at the request of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor assigned to this inquiry, his most powerful arguments for why Miller and Cooper should break their promises to sources are too sensitive for any of us to see.

As one respected First Amendment expert was heard to say, "What is this, freakin' Albania?"

Lesson No. 3: Reporters are not above the law


Not you. Not me. But civil disobedience holds a crucial place in our history. From the fight for civil rights to anti-war protests to reporters protecting the identity of their sources, there are those who have always defied the law on principle and paid the price. Miller is in jail because in a society of laws, good ones and bad ones, there are consequences. She has accepted the consequences.

Any aspiring reporter who thinks there is a martyred romanticism to her incarceration needs to think again. Nobody, including Miller, wants to have their hands and feet shackled, go to the bathroom under the gaze of a security camera, or lose even a minute of their liberty. Think early and often about what you will do when a subpoena arrives with your name on it. Take it from me, it will.

There are, young would-be journalists, risks involved in this work. It's true for political reporters confronting government, for business reporters taking on corporate interests, and for sports reporters uncovering the darker side of the game. Covering the news can win you a lot more enemies than friends. That's true when you get the story right as well as when you get the story wrong.

Miller has mostly gotten things right in her distinguished career, but not everything. Her most notable error was a big one, believing that Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi actually knew what he was talking about when he claimed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

There are some who believe Miller's current fight is a way to redeem that failure. I don't buy it. Not exactly known as Miss Congeniality in the New York Times newsroom, Miller admits to having "sharp elbows." I don't think she's suddenly worried about her image. I think she's standing for a vital principle. Not to mention giving aspiring journalists the hardest of lessons.

Hi as your assignment for next week is a science related article I thought you might like a look at this one:
more articles
next article >>
Fingernails store personal information

6 July 2005

Japanese researchers are using femtosecond laser pulses to write data into human fingernails.

Secure optical data storage could soon literally be at your fingertips thanks to work being carried out in Japan. Yoshio Hayasaki and his colleagues have discovered that data can be written into a human fingernail by irradiating it with femtosecond laser pulses. Capacities are said to be up to 5 mega bits and the stored data lasts for 6 months - the length of time it takes a fingernail to be completely replaced. (Optics Express 13 4560)


Fingernail storage

"I don't like carrying around a large number of cards, money and papers," Hayasaki from Tokushima University told Optics.org. "I think that a key application will be personal authentication. Data stored in a fingernail can be used with biometrics, such as fingerprint authentication and intravenous authentication of the finger."

The team's approach is simple: use a femtosecond laser system to write the data into the nail and a fluorescence microscope to read it out. The key to reading the data out is that the nail's fluorescence increases at the point irradiated by the femtosecond pulses.

Initial experiments were carried out on a small piece of human fingernail measuring 2 x 2 x 0.4 mm3. The writing system comprises a Ti:Sapphire oscillator and Ti:Sapphire amplifier. Pulses of less than 100 fs at 800 nm are then passed through a microscope and focused to three set depths (40, 60 and 80 microns) using an objective lens.

Each "bit" of information has a diameter of 3.1 microns and is written by a single femtosecond pulse. A motorised stage moves the nail to create a bit spacing of 5 microns across the nail and a depth of 20 microns between recording layers.

An optical microscope containing a filtered xenon arc lamp excites the fluorescence and reads out the data stored at the various depths. "We regulate the focus with the movement of the microscope objective," explained Hayasaki. "The distance between the planes is set to prevent cross-talk between data stored at different depths."

Hayasaki adds that the same fluorescence signal is seen 172 days after recording.

Although the initial experiments have concentrated on small pieces of nail, the team is now developing a system that can write data to a fingernail which is still attached to a finger. "We will develop a femtosecond laser processing system that can record the data at the desired points with compensation for the movement of a finger," said Hayasaki.

Author
Jacqueline Hewett is technology editor on Optics.org and Opto & Laser Europe magazine.

Altough the assignement for this weeks is to write a review on some artistic event, and you should do that, there are other stories out there that you can also follow. For example:




By REIJI YOSHIDA
Staff writer

The subtitle of a recently published book by political analyst Atsuo Ito sounds like a joke: "The most irritating data book in Japan."

Atsuo Ito poses during an interview about his new book on alarming Japanese statistics at a hotel in Tokyo. The political insider is trying to fight public indifference to Japanese politics. REIJI YOSHIDA PHOTO

But much of the data in "Seiji no Suji" ("Figures in Politics") is no laughing matter for voters and taxpayers.

According to the book, the Japanese Embassy in Paris spent 8.49 million yen in March 2000 alone to foot the drinking tab of the diplomats. The money, which comes to an average 274,000 yen a day, came from the "diplomatic discretionary fund" -- a secretive Foreign Ministry slush fund that does not require public disclosure on its use.

But Ito said many Japanese diplomats he met overseas used vast amounts of the fund to wine and dine Diet members on overseas junkets and to entertain themselves with extravagant meals at the same tables.

Ito also describes in the book how 53.6 percent of the Liberal Democratic Party's successful candidates in the 2003 House of Representatives election were "hereditary" lawmakers -- offspring, grandchildren or other close relatives of politicians.

This dominance of such a political elite, who "inherit" local support bases and vote-gathering machines, is readily denounced as a feudal type of nepotism rather than a modern democracy.

Ito, a former director general of the Democratic Party of Japan, said his decades-long career as a nonelected insider in Nagata-cho has convinced him that the general public will take a greater interest in politics if it knows more about what's truly at stake.

"To narrow the gap between politics and ordinary people, you have to start with explaining how politics affect their wallets and their entire personal life," Ito said in an interview with The Japan Times.

"That's why pension issues drew considerable public interest last year," he said, referring to heated debate over public pension reform -- an issue that delivered a setback to the ruling coalition in last July's House of Councilors election.

In the book, Ito points out that taxpayers pay 157 million yen to elect each House of Representatives member in the form of government funding for election campaigns and 259 million yen to elect each member of the House of Councilors.

In addition, the salary and expenses of each Diet member cost taxpayers at least 63 million yen a year.

Still, 40.14 percent of the nation's eligible voters failed to exercise their voting rights in the 2003 Lower House election, Ito said. Thus he urges voters to cast ballots anyway -- even blank ones ---- so the polling expenses don't go to waste.

Ito's book takes a cynical look at political data -- and for good reason.

Once dubbed the "contractor for new parties," Ito headed the secretariats of three parties that emerged in the late 1990s.

He had been a salaried employee at LDP headquarters in Tokyo for about 20 years before departing in 1993, the same time that dozens of LDP lawmakers defected, ousting the party from its decades-long stint in power.

He then helped the defectors create one new party after another in a bid to rival the LDP. He sometimes played key roles in media relations by collecting scandalous information to use as ammunition against the LDP.

The last party he served, the DPJ, which he left in December 2001, has since grown into the main opposition force and the LDP's main threat, in terms of Diet members.

But Ito admitted he feels more of a "sense of emptiness" rather than a sense of achievement.

"It is true the (political realignment) of the past decade gave birth to the DPJ. But all other opposition parties were failures," he said.

Of the 36 Lower House members who bolted from the LDP to form Shinseito in 1993, only four have retained Diet seats without ever returning to the LDP's sphere, according to Ito. Others have either returned to or formed alliances with the LDP, lost their seats, retired or passed away.

Their revolt kept the LDP out of government from August 1993 to June 1994, when the party returned to power by forming successive coalitions.

"Japanese politics have basically witnessed little change," Ito said, adding that he intends to analyze and learn from the failures of past political realignments in his bid to nurture people's interest in politics.

"It's quite easy to let politics be corrupt and decay," he says in the afterward for another of his books. "All you need to do is allow people to be indifferent."

The Japan Times: July 1, 2005
(C) All rights reserved

It is always interesting to see how other countries view your own. Here is an article, written by an English Report, about the atmosphere of fear in the American media:
1. DEMOCRATIC MEDIA: A DO-IT-YOURSELF STARTER KIT
by Sheldon Rampton
"I visit the States three or four times a year, and watching the
television news in hotel rooms in the last three years has been like
witnessing a time-lapse study of emasculation," writes Henry Porter,
the London editor of Vanity Fair magazine, in his ruminations about
the unmasking of FBI official Mark Felt as "Deep Throat," the
Watergate whistleblower.
"It's not just the unbearable lightness of purpose in most news
shows; it's the sense that everyone is rather too mindful of the
backstairs influence of the White House in companies such as Viacom
and News Corporation that own the TV news," Porter writes, adding,
"The result of this climate of fear and caution is that few
Americans have any idea of the circumstances in which 1,600 of their
countrymen have lost their lives in Iraq, the hideous injuries
suffered by both Iraqi and American victims of suicide bombers, or
even the profound responsibility that lies with Rumsfeld for
mishandling practically every facet of the occupation. The mission
to explain has been replaced by the mission to avoid. If today there
was a whistleblower as well-placed, heroically brave and strategic
as Mark Felt, one wonders whether he would now find the outlet that
Felt did at the Washington Post between 1972 and 1974."
For the rest of this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3782

The assignment for this week is for you to find a phot opportunity and take the picture. Blog the picture with a coupe of sentences discribing it. Good Luck. You can download BlogBot for windows or Flicker for Macs for free at the Blogger web site. The item I would like to discuss with you next week is the "Culture Defense" which is always very weak. Because it is part of thier culture is it OK for people in the South Pacific to eat other people? As it was part of the culture of the American South to have slaves it that OK? So what do you think about the following story?
Two research whale burgers to go, please

The Associated Press
A Hokkaido fast food joint began offering whale burgers Thursday as antiwhaling nations urged Japan to cut back on its catch at an international whaling conference.

Restaurant chain Lucky Pierrot serves a deep-fried minke whale meat burger, served with lettuce and mayonnaise, for 380 yen at its 10 joints in Hakodate.

Japan is facing mounting criticism over its research whaling program, which sees whales killed for study purposes before their meat is then sold. Critics say this is commercial hunting in disguise.

Miku Oh, a Lucky Pierrot official, said the chain is only utilizing stock already obtained from research whaling and it wants to preserve the culture of eating whale meat.

"People in other countries may think (eating whale) is strange, but it is our culture," she said, adding the whale for the burgers is cooked in such a way that "it tastes like beef and tuna, and since it is deep fried, it has no odor."

Annually, Japan kills about 400 minke whales in the Antarctic and another 210 whales -- 100 minke whales, 50 Bryde's whales, 50 sei whales and 10 sperm whales -- in the Northwestern Pacific.

At an annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission currently being held in Ulsan, South Korea, antiwhaling countries passed a resolution Wednesday urging Japan to drop plans to more than double the number of whales it hunts each year for research.

The commission has also rejected a proposal earlier to end its almost two-decade ban on commercial whaling. Another proposal by Japan to allow its northern coastal communities to resume limited hunts of minke whales was turned down Thursday.

Japan says it must kill whales to properly study them, including their stomach contents to glean details of their diets.

Environmental groups and antiwhaling countries, including the U.S. and Britain, say Japan's research whaling is a thinly disguised commercial whaling venture, stressing that meat is sold to Japanese supermarkets and restaurants to help fund the program.

The Japan Times: June 24, 2005
(C) All rights reserved

Next weeks assignment is for you to try and find a hot news item on your own. You should mark at the top what sort of value as a news item it has. Next what do you think about the following?


COUNTERPOINT

Media conspiracy of concealment costs social progress dear

By ROGER PULVERS
Special to The Japan Times

What do these Japanese people have in common: A neighbor of people whose house has burned down; an uncle or aunt of someone who has been the victim of a crime; a person who has had food poisoning?

The answer is that they are all likely to appear headless on Japanese television, perhaps with their voices altered to such a high pitch that they sound as if they were coming from the squeeze box inside a stuffed koala.

All Japanese channels, government-run and commercial, claim to have stringent rules about the protection of people's privacy. I know of no other developed country where witnesses to events appear so often in such a state of decapitated incognito. It used to be that their faces were blurred out. Then, during the 1980s -- no doubt thanks to improved technology -- the people interviewed on TV whose identity was deemed "compromised" bore a countenance made up of little mosaic squares, somewhat in the style of the early Braque.

In July 1996, what became a very severe and widespread case of E. coli O157 food poisoning broke out in Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture. More than 6,500 people (some have put the figure at nearly double that), primarily elementary school pupils, were affected due to their consumption of tainted pre-cooked lunches.

Naturally, TV inundated the airwaves with news of this public health disaster, and many people, directly and indirectly affected by it, were interviewed. Food poisoning is a common occurrence in Japan, where much food is prepared in advance and is sometimes left to sit unrefrigerated for hours. Yet, although there was no criminal intent on the part of those who prepared the lunches, both the children who fell ill, their parents and even unaffected people who lived near them appeared on TV in an altered, depersonalized state.

Fear of association
The assumption was that they did not wish their identity to be known, for fear of being associated in some way with misfortune, and that anonymity was perhaps the best protection against calumny.

Similarly, I recall a TV report of a waiting-room scene in one of the hospitals that was treating the patients. While the reporter spoke of the suffering that the children were going through, the entire scene behind her was distorted into a milky blur. Ironically, however, a scene of the very same waiting room appeared clear as crystal in a CNN report carried on the NHK satellite news channel. There was no effective way, I suppose, to impose Japanese standards of decorum on a foreign broadcaster.

What is at work here? Is it really that Japanese people regard it as an invasion of an individual's privacy to show them in a news broadcast, even when they are in no way compromised by the appearance? Do people who consent to interviews truly object to being visually identified? Or does the media actually encourage this form of censorship in order to lend an aura of conspiracy to a news item?

Of course, there are many cases where a person's identity should be legitimately protected. Victims of crime or whistle-blowers are often interviewed on the BBC, for instance, sitting with their backs to the camera or in deep shadow. But in Japan, there seems to be something that might be called "vicarious protection" -- that is, hiding the identity of people who are really not in any danger of public exposure.

Surely this blatant policy of non-identification goes well beyond the demands of either privacy or propriety. In addition, what is essentially a coverup of reality turns the news into a conspiracy of feelings. News reports come to resemble the pseudo-hush-hush entertainment of the variety shows, where reporters sneak around famous people's homes whispering into microphones and making provocative accusations into the intercoms at their front gates.

Unless there are real issues of privacy or potential harm to people, all interviews should be conducted openly and in full view of the public, with any person not wishing to appear on TV obviously retaining the right not to be seen. If that person accedes to an interview, however, then let them appear with their head on their shoulders and speaking in their normal voice.

Aura of excitement
I mentioned the conspiracy of feelings. This is a conspiracy between the media and the public, and both are to blame for its pernicious effect on Japanese social progress. A senior news producer at a Tohoku TV station once told me that his channel deliberately blurred out people's faces even when they were quite happy to appear as themselves. "We do this," he confessed, "in order to lend an aura of excitement to the program, as if something titillating or taboo were being presented." This hidebound hack producer has no place working in a news organization.

If Japan is to succeed in reshaping its mores to fit the needs of this century, then the Japanese people must opt for openness; and that entails freeing up the flow of information between people, knowledge-sharing across disciplines and institutions, and social dialogue that crosses the lines of gender, class and ethnic origin. The stalwart model of a smoothly operated, well-oiled, don't-show-your-operating-manual-to-a-soul Japan -- the old one-face-to-the-world lean machine -- is running out of steam.

Frankly, I am not too optimistic about change in the media, particularly TV, which is still managed with a tight fist on the gear shift. The media moguls there are not going to give an inch, let alone a storehouse of information, to anyone they deem unworthy of the gift.

But knowledge and information are not a gift! They are a society's right. I do feel that the younger generation of Japanese are not as fearful of letting out secrets or airing their views publicly as the elder manipulators are. Once you open up to others, you gain their trust; and they, in turn, open up to you.

The winner is the entire society. News is truth; truth, news.

The Japan Times: June 19, 2005

READ THIS. WE WILL TALK ABOUT IT NEXT WEEK IN CLASS AND I WANT YOUR THOUGHTFUL OPINIONS ON IT. Clark

CONVICTED FOR SPILLING BEANS ON SECRET OKINAWA TREATY
Reporter who blew whistle on state shenanigans sues for redress

By KEIJI HIRANO
Kyodo News

The Watergate scandal forced a U.S. president to resign and turned two journalists into national heroes, but a diplomatic scandal in Japan involving a secret pact with the United States over the 1972 reversion of Okinawa resulted in the convictions of the journalist who reported it and his "Deep Throat" source.

Takichi Nishiyama, a former political reporter at the Mainichi Shimbun, has broken a 30-year silence to clear his name, backed by U.S. government documents released in 2000 and 2002 that back his report on how Japan secretly shouldered $4 million in social costs for Okinawa's reversion to Japanese sovereignty from the U.S.

"The existence of the secret deal has been proved three times -- first by my report and again by the two U.S. documents. However, the Japanese government has continuously denied it," Nishiyama, 73, said.

Nishiyama was indicted in April 1972 along with a Foreign Ministry secretary for persuading her to show him classified internal documents about the negotiations over Okinawa's reversion, including the secret pact. Both were accused of violating the National Public Services Law.

He left the daily in 1974 and his conviction was finalized by the Supreme Court in 1978. The secretary never appealed the initial guilty sentence.

But in late April, nearly 30 years later, Nishiyama filed a damages suit at the Tokyo District Court, seeking 33 million yen from the state, claiming he was illegally charged and forced to end his career as a journalist.

"It is a state crime to submit a false treaty text to the Diet (covering up the existence of the secret agreement) for discussion and approval, and it is an abuse of power to indict a reporter who tried to inform the public of the state crime," the complaint said.

The legal battle has raised expectations that the secret bilateral agreement will come to light when the trial starts on July 5.

When authorities started investigating the case, they were criticized for suppressing freedom of the press.

But the public started viewing the issue as a scandal instead of diplomatic intrigue when the indictment stated that Nishiyama "had an affair with her secretly and urged her to bring him the documents."

"It is quite regrettable that the initial argument over the existence of the secret deal was easily shifted to how Mr. Nishiyama had obtained the classified documents," said Yasuhiko Tajima, professor of journalism at Sophia University.

"The focus of this issue was on the secret pact, but the government successfully took the spotlight off the diplomatic issue," he said.

"In this damage suit, we need to question the responsibility of the government, which still denies the secret agreement."

The two U.S. documents that prompted Nishiyama to file the damages suit indicated Japan assumed $4 million in costs the United States was supposed to pay to restore Okinawa's land to its original state, and that Japan asked the U.S. to flatly deny the existence of the pact to the press.

Even after the release of these documents, successive foreign ministers and chief Cabinet secretaries denied the secret pact existed.

"The denial by current government officials means the state crime is continuing," Nishiyama said.

"I might be tarnished again in the coming court battle, but I want to (demonstrate) that it is not an issue of more than 30 years ago, but a current problem," he said. "The government will not be able to easily lie to the court this time."

The lawsuit comes at a time when Japan and the United States are discussing ways to accommodate the global realignment of the U.S. military.

After retiring from the Mainichi Shimbun, Nishiyama returned to his hometown, Kitakyushu, where he got involved in a family business.

Michio Sato, the Tokyo prosecutor who drew up Nishiyama's indictment, said the investigative team only focused on how the internal Foreign Ministry documents were acquired and did not address whether the secret pact existed.

"It is unforgivable to seduce the secretary to bring out classified documents," said Sato, now a member of the House of Councilors.

"Even if he tried to reveal a national secret, his criminal act will never be cleared."

Sato also said he wrote the description of Nishiyama's relationship with the ex-secretary into the indictment to inform the public of the nature of the incident.

"It was just like a reporter committing theft. Can a journalist do anything for a story?"

Lawyer Katsumi Fujimori, who is representing Nishiyama, said the appropriateness of the ex-reporter's news-gathering activities will be argued in court. "Mr. Nishiyama could not deliberately ignore the government's treachery after he knew it," he said.

Fujimori also said he aims to have the court practically rescind the guilty verdict against Nishiyama.

Sophia's Tajima also defended Nishiyama's actions.

"I do not think it is an ethical matter if his news-gathering was appropriate. It is not a legal issue either."

Looking back at the investigation into him and his source, Nishiyama said that while he had "an equal relationship" with the woman, the prosecutors used it as an excuse to indict them.

"I believe the indictment was politically motivated," he reckoned.

Masaaki Gabe, a professor at the University of the Ryukyus who found one of the U.S. documents in 2000, said he expects the court to present its views on the secret pact when it concludes the lawsuit. "That is what Mr. Nishiyama is seeking beyond compensation, I believe," he added.

"While I happened to encounter the document as a researcher, it would be my honor if the document can enable a man to retain his credit or pride," he said.

The Japan Times: June 10, 2005
(C) All rights reserved

For those of you who missed yesterdays class the assignment for next week is to write an obituary of some famous person. You should look at the obituaries in the newspaper to get a model. You have to use your imagination on how the person dies. Deadline (no pun intended) is noon Tue. and should be sent to carsure@cc.aoyama.ac.jp. Good luck and see you next week. Clark

Here is an interesting but strange news story, what is strange about it?


Monju's fast-breeder technology remains far from practical

A Supreme Court ruling late last month in favor of the Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor may have been welcome news to its builder, the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute, but putting the technology into practical use is still a long way away.

The top court upheld the government's 1983 approval to build Monju, once dubbed a "dream atomic reactor," paving the way to get it back online. The facility in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, has been shut for more than nine years due to an accident and coverup.

Fast-breeder reactors like Monju are supposed to be able to produce more plutonium than they consume, and the government initially expected to get the technology into practical use in the 1970s.

The government has spent more than 800 billion yen on the reactor, Japan's largest scientific and technological project.

Monju reached criticality for the first time in 1994, but a massive sodium coolant leak in December 1995 triggered a claim that the accident resulted from shortcomings in the facility's safety assessment before it was built.

The Nagoya High Court's Kanazawa branch supported that claim by 32 plaintiffs, mostly residents living near the facility, who sought to nullify the approval to build the reactor. The Supreme Court's May 30 ruling overturned that decision.

Since the accident, mishaps at other nuclear plants and coverups have followed. In addition, the electricity market has been liberalized, sending power companies unable to adapt quickly into a tight financial corner.

Fast-breeder reactors use costly plutonium-uranium mixed oxide, or MOX, fuel, and the target year for putting the reactor technology to commercial use was put off to 2010, and then to 2030.

"The largest reason for the delayed target is economic efficiency," an official at the Atomic Energy Commission said. "The initial forecast proved wrong, and uranium prices have long been stable. Instead of reusing less economical plutonium, it's profitable to use the present light-water reactors as long as possible."

The Atomic Energy Commission, which works out long-term nuclear power plans, decided this year to begin a full-scale study in 2015 on the commercial use of fast-breeder reactors, with Monju's performance as a model.

However, precise blueprints are nowhere in sight, and introduction of a reactor for practical use has been further delayed, "until about 2050."

A power industry source said that even the next experimental fast-breeder reactor will probably be radically different from Monju.

"Various types of structures should be considered for the final reactor for practical use, including a water-cooled type," a nuclear power researcher said.

Despite all the questions about its future, maintaining Monju -- even while it is still shut down -- runs somewhere between 6.4 billion yen and 17.3 billion yen a year. The total since the 1995 accident is expected to reach 127 billion yen by next March.

Meanwhile, Monju still plays a major political and economic role in Fukui Prefecture and the city of Tsuruga. About 2 percent of the city's 70,000 residents are employees at the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute and related companies.

"The economic effects are large. We want to coexist and jointly prosper" with Monju, said Tsuruga Mayor Kazuharu Kawase.

For Fukui Prefecture, which has 15 nuclear plants within its borders, the radically different Monju is also a tool to attract as much money as possible from the central government.

The Japan Times: June 9, 2005

The e-mail address I have you yesterday was wrong. Please try and send your story to carsurf@cc.aoyama.ac.jp. The story for this week is another local story about something on the campus or surronding it. Story is due noon Tue. Good Luck and see you next week. Clark

Hi Please read the following story from the Japan Times. We will be discussing it in class tomorrow. Clark
Rise in defamation suits threaten media: journalists

By MASAMI ITO
Staff writer

The increasing number of lawsuits being filed in response to allegedly defamatory news articles is posing a threat to media organizations and freedom of expression by discouraging aggressive reporting, several journalists said at a recent symposium in Saitama.

The symposium, "Pride -- Fighting Journalists," was held last Friday by the Kanto regional branch of Shimbun Roren, a federation of newspaper employee unions.

Featured as panelists were three journalists -- one freelance and two working for major newspapers -- who have been targeted in massive lawsuits filed by major loan companies.

Katsuhisa Miyake, a freelance writer, is being sued by consumer loan giant Takefuji Corp. over a series of articles he wrote in 2003 for the Shukan Kinyobi weekly newsmagazine regarding what he described as the firm's "cruel" tactics for collecting money from debtors.

Both the Tokyo District Court and the Tokyo High Court dismissed the lawsuit filed by Takefuji, which called on Miyake to pay 110 million yen in damages. Takefuji has appealed to the Supreme Court and the case is still ongoing.

"It is not a matter of winning or losing" for those who file such lawsuits, Miyake claimed.

"The significance lies in filing the lawsuit itself," he said. "For (writers) who are being sued, I think the most frightening thing is the fear that they may have to give up (writing) stories that could result in a major damages suit."

Freelance writer Kenichi Kita, coordinator of the symposium, said many publishers are telling their freelance writers to avoid risky articles.

Journalists are often discouraged from writing about suspected cases of wrongdoing unless it is certain investigators will take action, he noted.

In addition, those suing seem to be treating their targets differently, going after the weaker ones, including freelancers, with unmitigated aggression.

The Asahi Shimbun, a major daily, was also sued by Takefuji in 1996 after staff reporter Hideo Takaya wrote a series of articles on consumer loan companies, including Takefuji, for its weekly magazine Aera. In November that year, Takefuji demanded 100 million yen from the paper and an apology.

The Tokyo District Court dismissed the case in June 1997. Takefuji did not appeal.

This stands in stark contrast to the action the company took against freelance writer Miyake, Takaya said.

"The tactics used by companies like Takefuji (when fighting a legal battle against) major newspapers . . . are very different from those against freelancers like Miyake," Takaya said. "Their first step is crushing freelance writers and (small) magazines like Shukan Kinyobi. But before we know it, major newspapers may be targeted in the future."

Miyake also alleged that close ties between media organizations and their major advertisers can alter the depth and type of coverage a company receives in the press.

For example, he noted the way the administrative punishment imposed last December on the Kinshicho branch of Takefuji for violating the Moneylending Control Law was covered.

"(The major media) carried only small stories (on the case) even though it was a rare case in which a moneylender was being punished for a second time for the same offense," Miyake said, pointing out that the media organizations in question continued to run large Takefuji ads on a daily basis.

Masashi Ito, a Mainichi Shimbun reporter, is being sued by SFCG, a Tokyo-based provider of corporate loans.

Last November, Ito wrote a series of articles alleging SFCG had duped customers into signing documents that gave SFCG authorization to seize their property, which later resulted in the debtors' salaries being "seized."

Within a month, SFCG filed a lawsuit against Ito as well as the Mainichi Shimbun, demanding a combined 350 million yen in damages.

Ito said he was not pressured by his superiors to avoid writing about the moneylender, but the story might have turned out differently had SFCG been a major advertiser in the Mainichi.

SFCG's clients are mainly small and medium-size firms.

"In my case, the lawsuit was filed soon after my article was published," Ito said. "It was very clear that (SFCG's) aim was to prevent me from writing the stories.

"The company even said that my continuing to write the articles while being implicated in a legal battle was inexcusable."

Members of the audience also complained about the rise in defamation suits and said lawyers and whistle-blowers are also being targeted.

One participant, lawyer Masaki Kito, said he is being sued for defamation of character by a self-enlightenment group called Home of Heart, which has demanded over 100 million yen in compensation.

According to Kito, the reason he has been sued is because of comments he made to TV broadcasters, newspapers, magazines and Internet sites regarding allegations of child abuse made by former members of the group. Home of Heart is also suing former members who spoke out against it.

"The right to know is based on the continued flow (of information) from the source to the media and to the general public," Kito said. "If at any point (this flow) should be cut off, freedom of expression will cease to exist."

The Japan Times: June 1, 2005