media - The Japanese coverage

Andrea of t-salon points at this article in the Financial Times that gives an overview of the rather sensationalist take the Japanese media give when they report about the anti-Japanese demonstrations in China.

"Unfortunately, Japanese coverage of the riots has been very sensationalist, so the parent companies' risk management teams have been getting in touch with their people in China and setting off a chain reaction," Mr [Tomoharu] Washio [of Japan's external trade organization Jetro] said. "Now everyone has become a little bit more nervous."
Mr Washio said manufacturers were so far largely unaffected, in spite of weekend reports of an anti-Japanese strike at a plant in Guandong province belonging to Taiyo Yuden, a manufacturer of electronics parts. But consumer companies were worried about the possible spread of boycotts, he said. "From what we are hearing, [new] advertising and public relations activities have stopped," he said.

It reminds me also of an anecdote told me on Saturday by a Japanese reporter, who complaints about the way the Japanese consulate had facilitated their work. A week before the consulate reported that two Japanese had been hurt in a fight at a university in Shanghai, the East China Normal University. It took the reporter three days and many calls before the consulate admitted that a fight over de Chinese girlfriend was the cause of all this, suggesting wrongly for days this was a racists attack. The local police was less then forthcoming in assisting the (one) victim, suggesting it happened because the victim was Japanese. That is bad enough, but by withholding crucial information, the role of the consulate also got bad reviews.
In terms of new media Japan is far ahead of China, with now one million weblogs and 15 million Japanese who have commented on weblogs, 40 percent of all internet users, reports the Blog Herald. I'm not sure whether the weblogs would do better in setting up a conversation compared to the traditional media, not sure at all.

Books on media in Japan