Number 1 shimbun

From the Editor

Justin McCurry

Don’t fall off your chairs, but I feel a twinge of sympathy for Sanae Takaichi. The conservative became Japan’s first female prime minister at a time of global tumult not seen since the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The fallout from the U.S-Israel war in Iran is already being felt in oil-dependent Japan. That has forced Takaichi to quickly develop a feel for foreign policy, a skill few believed she possessed when she won the LDP presidency last autumn. But if half the battle is securing favorable media coverage, then Takaichi can only hope her handling of international crises is half as effective as her approach to Japan's established newspapers and TV networks. By largely swerving scrutiny from the legacy media, Takaichi has been able to control the narrative around her administration more effectively than any of her predecessors in the digital era. In this month’s cover story, David McNeill explains how Takaichi has harnessed the power of social media, and in a related piece, Karyn Nishimura looks at the prime minister’s mutually beneficial relationship with prominent influencers and columnists. Elsewhere, Mark Schreiber traces Japan’s postwar “reverse course” policy though the eyes of two foreign journalists; in their regular columns, Philip Brasor poses questions about animal welfare raised by the case of Punch the baby macaque, and Eric Johnston weighs up the prospects for a Hokkaido-wide Winter Olympics. A busy month in the Club’s calendar is reflected in this issue, with articles on Team FCCJ’s ekiden heroics, a “school night” session on how to write a good review, events featuring prominent speakers, a Deep Dive panel on the Iran war and Japan, and the FCCJ’s anniversary collaboration with The History Channel. In the latest in her Ask an Associate series, Suvendrini Kakuchi sits down with Mehdi Bassiri, who has mixed feelings about the conflict in his homeland. Sadly, this issue also features tributes to longtime FCCJ member and onetime ABC News Tokyo cameraman and soundman Masaaki Ogushi, who has died aged 79.

Cover artwork by Julio Shiiki