Legacy Media in Japan is Q-Resistant

A New York Times OpEd titled Why QAnon Flopped in Japan says:

Another defense against misinformation is the dominance of Japan’s legacy print and broadcast media, an unintended effect of its gate-keeping. Backed by a fairness doctrine in national broadcast law, programming must avoid distorting facts, stay politically fair and not harm public safety. The law has hampered the rise of overtly partisan television and radio; there is no 24/7 broadcast news cycle clamoring for scoops.

Japanese newspapers also continue to enjoy some of the world’s highest print circulation. So they haven’t seriously explored digital distribution and hardly acknowledged online current affairs until recently. The upside of that is fringe theories aren’t so easily laundered into the mainstream news — in contrast with the United States, where a single tweet can and often does make headlines.

What a strange and lazy conflation: because you're reading Japanese newspapers "in print", then none of the reporters cover what's happening on the Internet. They've "hardly acknowledged online current affairs until recently".





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