Never pick a fight with anyone who buys ink by the barrel

Jake Adelstein reports on the marked uptick of coverage of Japanese Cabinet scandals:

There is a great deal of speculation on why these scandals are coming out now in the press—but the explanation may be very simple. Perhaps Prime Minister Abe, who is constantly trying to revise Japan’s imperial past and whitewash war-crimes by the Japanese military, simply is living testimony to the axiom, beautifully stated by a medical orderly who treated “comfort women” sexually enslaved by the Japanese during World War II: “If we don’t face our past, we’re bound to repeat the same mistakes.” 

Still, for the last year the media has been treating the Abe regime with obsequious deference. So one may wonder, what has awakened the sleeping lapdogs and why are they suddenly biting? 

The answer is two-pronged. In August, the Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s second largest paper, ran an article refuting some of their previous work on the “comfort women” issue—something that has long been a bone of contention for Prime Minister Abe. 

The prime minister and his chief cabinet secretary seized the opportunity to criticized Asahi publicly for “shaming Japan,” sparking virulent right wing protests and threats towards former and current Asahi reporters. It showed that the Abe administration would use its position of power to silence opposition in the media. 

While many magazines and newspapers joined in the public drubbing of Asahi, there has gradually emerged a fear among the press that, “maybe we’re next…”
The other issue spurring the Japanese media to do their jobs as watchdogs is an impending “time limit” on press freedom in this country. 

On December 10, the Specially Designated Secrets Law will go into effect. The new legislation, which has been condemned by Reporters Without Borders, the United Nations, and most of the media in Japan, allows the government to declare anything it chooses as a state secret with no outside supervision or oversight. It is a Kafkaesque law that will allow journalists to be charged with sedition, facing up to five years in jail, for obstinately asking questions about something they didn’t even know was secret—because that can be “instigating a leak.”

More  @ The Daily Beast