(Lasted updated August 23, 2025)Taboos in the Broadcast Media in Japan
The very subject matter of these taboos is taboo, which sort of makes taboo discussions of the fact that they are taboo. They are listed here from my experience in listening carefully to what gets discussed and what is not discussed (or spun with alternative expressions) in the media.
Use of the term war in news coverage of either the Russo-Ukraine War or Israel's War on Gaza(Added March 19, 2024)
From NHK coverage of the Russo-Ukrainian war, it appears that NHK is studiously avoiding referring to the war as a war, but rather is referring to it in Japanese as an invasion, one that has continued, of course for more than two and one-half years. That is rather like referring to the war in the Pacific as the Pearl Harbor attack. Why would NHK avoid referring to the Rusoo-Ukrainian war as a war?
Could it be that there is a problem involving continued purchasing by Japan of fuel from one of the warring parties? Or is it the kotodama belief, the idea that words have a special mystical power that can make the things they signify happen in real life if they are spoken or written. If they called the conflict in Ukraine a war, it might become a war, one might think. Although the dictator running Russia will punish people for referring this conflict as a war, I suspect most people in Ukraine, which has a large amount of its territory occupied by Russia, realize that there is a war going on.
Turning to Israel's war on the Palestinians in Gaza, an argument could be made that there cannot be a "war" because there is no separate state that Israel is fighting Gaza is Israel. Gaza is arguably Israel, but that is precisely the situation that is one of the major reasons for the conflict.
Unequivocal linking of smoking with specific diseases
The Japanese government holds a large interest in Japan Tabacco, the only company producing cigarettes in Japan. Although you might hear people on TV occasionally saying that smoking is bad for your health, it is extremely rare to hear a definitive statement linking smoking to specific diseases such as cancer or heart diseases. That is not surprising, since NHK is essentially controlled by the Japanese government, and the private broadcasters run non-cigarette ads for Japan Tobacco
Discussion of pachinko as gambling for money
Very few Japanese would deny this, but I cannot recall ever hearing any broadcast media seriously admit this truth. The assumed (but not voiced) cover story is that pachinko is not really gambling for money, but just a game, with incidental winning of prizes. The truth is that some people lose their entire paycheck playing pachinko in the hope of winning prizes exchangeable for cash. The prizes have no intrinsic value, but are a type of special-purpose currency used to cash in on your winnings. If pachinko were not gambling, we would not hear of parents leaving their small children to die in a hot car in midsummer while they play the game.
Mentioning that pachinko parlors are largely owned and run by Koreans
Again, something of which very few Japanese are unaware, but something which I have not once heard in the broadcast media, in almost a half-century living here.
Discussion of jumping in front of trains as a common way to end it all
If you ride the trains with any frequency in Japan's larger cities, you will numerous times each month hear announcements or see them flashing on displays on platforms to indicate that an "accident involving human injury" has happened and has caused delays. Most people know this means someone has jumped in front of a train. The media, however, will not discuss these incidents as such, which is putatively a problem deeper than just the numbers of people jumping indicate. Perhaps, of course, they are afraid of copycat jumpers. They do occasionally try to warn people who have been drinking to be careful on train platforms, thereby taking attention away from the people who jump on the tracks in the daytime, when it is pretty tough to find someone drunk.
"Outing" the nationality of a Korean in Japan who for all intents and purposes is passing as a Japanese
Yasuda Narumi, an actress here is either a Zainichi, or a naturalized Japanese of Korean origin (by all reports and "inherited wisdom"). She was playing the part of the daughter of a Japanese military officer in Korea in a TV drama and left the production. On one of Japan's daytime talk/gossip shows, one of their resident commentators said that he thought it was natural for her to quit, not feeling comfortable with the role, because she was Korean. He was essentially fired from the show. In Japan, outing a Korean sets you up for defamation of character even if it is true, which says something about what being a Korean and particularly being known to be a Korean who was "passing" means in Japan. This was the first and last time I have heard a Korean being outed in the Japanese broadcast media.
Japan's historical and persisting problem with the "formerly" persecuted burakumin people
It appears that discussion of this social problem is only possible if someone from the burakumin is doing this discussing. Any passing reference to it in the media is likely to cause a storm of protests from special interest groups. The very word buraku is pretty much taboo, and when NHK encounters it in the speech of someone being interviewed, unless it can be edited around they will subtitle it and change the word to shuraku (集落) or sonraku (村落), thereby distancing themselves from the term and shielding themselves from protests. I always wonder whether they ask permission of the original speakers before they make that substitution. In no case that I have seen has the original speaker used the word in the sense of the burakumin problem.