It surprises me how often I see news about murder cases on TV in Japan. In the last few months, there is hardly a day without its atrocious murder story. This contrasts sharply with what I was used to in Europe. I check BBC news everyday, and rarely find murder stories making the headlines.
That doesn't mean that Japan has proportionally more murders. Maybe it's just that Japan's population is much bigger than individual European countries. But I think that the difference is mainly due to the reporting style. Many local murders won't make the headlines (especially on TV) in Europe because there is too much happening in the world to concentrate on that. It's mostly tabloid papers that make of horrendous crimes their headlines. But in Japan it seems that every news agency behaves like European tabloids, even NHK (the Japanese equivalent of the BBC). Do Japanese people like crime stories so much that it takes such an important place in the news ? I wish they would report more international news (or spend more time on it) and drop the family or neighbour murder stories - let alone the insistence on foreign crimes.
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