Important or not important? That is the question for the world’s newsrooms every day. The answer is different depending on the culture. In America, baseball news is more important than soccer news. In Germany, football news is more important than any other news on some days. And there seems to be a preference for innocuous truths in Japan’s collective society.
Sure, journalism in the island nation also tackles difficult topics and accidents. But it is noticeable that a lot is reported about the ruling party LDP, for example, and little about the opposition. And when the media does deal with controversy, it’s often about the very small business. An example?
On Sunday, the Kyodo news agency reported under its “Feature” section: “Japanese men are increasingly choosing to sit on the toilet when urinating instead of standing, because they aim less accurately when standing or cause a mess by unwanted ‘splashes’ . ” The starting point was a survey by a toilet manufacturer, according to which 60.9 percent of those questioned prefer to urinate while sitting than standing. The Kyodo report is rich in detail. Tomoyuki Isowa, 53, a business owner from Nagakute who has converted to pee, has his say. “I also showed consideration for my wife, who always cleans,” he says. Marketing analyst Yohei Harada explains why peeing is also widespread among younger people – surprisingly, media consumption is a factor here: it is probably because they can use their cell phones better.
Billions of men have to decide in the toilets of this world every day whether to sit or stand. So the subject is big – but pretty easy to solve compared to other problems. In any case, the Kyodo customers now know something that they really didn’t want to know.