Most Japanese Newspapers Restrained in Slaying Coverage

Mainstream newspapers here were restrained in their reporting of the stabbing death of Yasuo Kato in Camarillo, but Japan’s most popular tabloid went to town with the story.

The tabloid, Nikkan Sports, devoted half of its Wednesday morning front page to covering the story under the headline: “Japanese murdered, is anti-Japanese feeling the motivation? Threatened with murder, told recession is Japan’s fault. Sense of crisis among 1.09 million Japanese and Japanese-Americans.”

The report was straightforward, but the story also mentioned that there was “some suspicion that anti-Japanese feeling was involved in the Boston murder of a Chukyo University president Feb. 18.”

The story said that there are 850,000 Japanese-Americans and 236,000 Japanese nationals living in the United States and that American papers have been running stories in which they quoted Japanese-Americans talking of a revived effort by whites to run Japanese out of the country.

The Asahi Shimbun, a respected Japanese daily, played the story at the top of its Page 3 Metro section but handled the topic coolly. The only mention of anti-Japanese feeling came from a police spokesman who said that anti-Japanese sentiment cannot be excluded as a possible motive in the slaying.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan’s largest business daily, ended its account of the slaying with a comment on rising anti-Japanese sentiment: “Since the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor at the end of last year, the anti-Japanese mood in America has increased, exacerbated by American-bashing comments of Japanese politicians.”

There have been a string of murders of Japanese overseas. Last week a Japanese businessman and his wife living in Guam were murdered. In the same week, the president of Nagoya’s Chukyo University, in Boston for talks about establishing links with the University of Massachusetts, was shot to death in his hotel room. Police believe burglary was the primary motive in that case.