As always, this blog post and the opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of my employer.
報道ステーション (Hodo Station / News Station) is a news program on the TV Asahi network. I often watch it as one of the few news programs aired at 10 PM.
What triggered this post was the heavily biased coverage on March 9th. The program opened with roughly 10 minutes on the Iran situation, focusing almost exclusively on the Iranian side and human stories from Turkish interviews. There was virtually nothing about Iran’s missile and drone attacks on the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Israel, or other Gulf states.
Newscaster Kensuke Okoshi (大越健介) concluded the segment with his commentary on the “different concepts of justice.” He stated as fact:
「今回、アメリカやイスラエルがイランの攻撃に一方的に踏み切ったことは、国際法の違反だという国際世論が圧倒的で、その意味では正義とは言えません。」
(“The unilateral military action by the US and Israel against Iran is considered a violation of international law by overwhelming international opinion, and therefore cannot be called justice.”)
He presented this not as his personal view, but as unquestionable reality. In his official postscript published the same day on the TV Asahi website, he went even further:
「明らかに国際法違反だと識者は指摘する。」 「軍事力に勝るアメリカという強者が、イランという国家を踏みにじる行為は国際法違反であり、看過できない。」
I’m very familiar with this style of biased reporting from the New York Times, The Guardian, and the BBC. But I was surprised to see it at this level on Japanese television. Of course media bias has been shaped by two years of conflict, but this specific report felt particularly one-sided.
Growing up, I always knew which newspapers leaned left or right. I learned early that I needed to read multiple sources to form my own opinion. During the Cold War, we understood that Soviet media’s job was to distort reality to fit the party line — yet it was sometimes still useful to read them to understand their perspective.
Today, when most mainstream media operates with a clear agenda, I wonder if we’re seeing the end of traditional journalism. If I can’t trust journalists to rigorously check facts, challenge assumptions, and present balanced context, who can I trust?
X (Twitter) is biased. Newspapers are biased. Television is biased. We’re constantly fed information shaped by political views — and sometimes outright paid propaganda from foreign states.
I had hoped Japanese news outlets would maintain higher standards, but the March 9th 報道ステーション report proved otherwise.
Very disappointing. I’ll probably take a break from the show for a while. There’s already more than enough propaganda on the internet.
(You can watch the exact segment here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbbQXrU_6B0)
