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Who is leading the bullying problems ?

The development of the Internet and the rapid spread of smartphones have being made it easier to watch the news.
We are also watching even news from other local media that we had never had a chance to watch before.
With the increased watch to news, you may feel that there are a lot of articles that are biased toward their own way of thinking and political ideology.
Of course, this is not unique to local media, some mainstream media (newspapers and TV broadcasters) also delivery articles and TV programs that are biased toward their own way of thinking and ideologies.

As the news becomes easier for watching, many people may realize that the phrase “the media should be neutral” is a wrong assumption.

A hot topic for discussion recently, one guy posted on Twitter about the number of days of sit-ins protesting against U.S. military bases in Okinawa. With triggered by this Twitter, many articles have being written by the mass media that seem to teach people “how to bully others”.
Of course, it is also true that there are articles reporting both positive and negative opinions about this Twitter.

However, some mass media refuse to accept opinion that differ from their company’s the way of thinking and ideologies even as one of opinions, and continue to write articles that declare different ideas and ideologies to be wrong and urge to withdraw their opinion.
These mass media articles categorically deny freedom of speech and diversity to people and groups that differ from their own ideas and ideologies. In fact, one of mass media reported that his comments on Twitter ridiculed protest activities against U.S. military bases in Okinawa. 

In Japan, there is freedom of speech theoretically. In addition, as a democratic nation, freedom of politics, religion, and thought is recognized. Therefore, the mass media also need to respect diversity, such as differences in way of thinking and ideologies.

Of course, we don’t mean to say that the current state of the mass media is a problem.
What would happen if all mass media are reporting neutral articles at same standing position.
There is also diversity in individual “information to know” and ‘”political thought”, and the mass media will not be able to respond to that diversity.
(If all mass media stand in the same position, it would be tough to survive as a going concern.)

However, we feel that there is still a problem that must be considered even if the mass media also need to have many positions to stand on.

Apart from freedom of speech and respect for diversity, there is a big social problem of bullying.
What happens when children imitate the behavior of some mass media, i.e., the making extremely intense criticisms (which could be called “character assassination” from the contents of the talk) against one individual whose way of thinking and ideologies are different from their own ?

What would happen if a crowd of children continued to criticize one child in person or on social media just because they didn’t like what he/she said or did ?
Will the mass media support their behavior because it is a criticism on a child with a different way of thinking ?
Or do the mass media intend to declare that we are special existence that is beyond the law and are allowed to do whatever we want ?

As a democratic nation, I believe that the mass media should embrace diversity, and then they write articles about what they feel from their company’s the way of thinking and ideologies.
We would like the mass media to understand current environment that children can easily watch the news.

Thanks.
2022/11/03