Media and Politics in Japan: Fukushima and Beyond

This document is a summary of a presentation on media and politics in Japan, which was delivered by Martin Fackler, Tokyo Bureau Chief of the New York Times, on 6 November 2014 at Chatham House. The speaker explained that the relationship between media and politics in Japan was a topic both complex and multifaceted, which would have allowed him to speak, for instance, about the state secrecy law or the ‘war on the Asahi Shimbun. However, he had chosen to start the discussion with Fukushima, i.e. the nuclear meltdown resulting from the earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011, because he believed the latter represented a defining, watershed moment in Japan’s recent history with regard to the relationship between the country’s media and both its government and public.