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Russian-born TV personality Kohara Bras sparked discussion by pointing out on Threads that many internet users who rage against the “trash media” are, in fact, citing Yahoo News articles that were originally produced by that very same “trash media.” In a 5ch thread, some users agreed with the point, while others pushed back, arguing that “information TV won’t report is circulating on social media.” Opinions split over where distrust in the media really comes from and how people should be consuming information.
8/31 (Mon) 12:15
Kohara Bras (34), a Russian-born columnist and TV personality who grew up in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture, updated Threads by the 31st with his take on internet users who accuse the media of biased reporting.
Kohara began, “When you check out the accounts of the guys on X screaming stuff like ‘The media sucks! Biased reporting! They should go under!’ — they’re usually posting about current events by quoting Yahoo News.” He then jabbed, “And I always think, are you sure that’s okay? Because the outlet behind that Yahoo News article is the very media you claim to hate.” He added sarcastically, “In the end, when something’s reported in a way that matches their own beliefs, they happily swallow it without question — but when it doesn’t match, they start yelling about ‘biased reporting.’ Maybe we should coin a term for these people, like ‘information-illiterate,’ for this age of information overload.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
That's some serious blame-shifting.
The ones responsible for the public's right to know are the public themselves — including you.
If you think the media isn't living up to that duty, then you should be the one stepping up to fulfill it.
"Why is this getting such huge coverage?"
or, conversely, "Why is everyone so quiet about this?" —
that gut feeling is usually right.
The answer is rarely found in the "facts" themselves — it's in the "structure."
More than "what's being said,"
what matters is "what's NOT being said."
The generational divide:
TV generation:
"Whatever gets big coverage = important."
Internet generation:
"The very act of staying quiet about something is suspicious."
This gap is exactly what surfaces as "distrust of the media."
And lately the full, unedited version is often only available on social media anyway.
"The media is hiding this, they refuse to report it!" — while linking an article that's literally reporting on it at the same time.
I think to them, "the media" basically just means TV.
"Mass media" 👈 mainstream media in general
"Trash media" (masugomi — a slang mashup of "mass media" and "garbage") 👈 a mocking term for outlets seen as pushing ideology and bias instead of the fact-based reporting other outlets do
But I think what Re: #1 is actually saying is that it's the social media crowd whose thinking is more ideologically slanted.
Like that accident in Okinawa.
Boom, roasted.
No idiot believes information from social media alone.
At the end of the day, it only holds up because there's media reporting backing it.
then who exactly is supposed to interview the politicians?
Just saying.
Politicians these days put their own message out directly anyway.
Channels like ReHacQ (a Japanese YouTube interview show) and Senkyo.com (an election-info site) run interviews over an hour long that go pretty deep.
If anything, old media doesn't stand a chance next to them.
Maybe it's over-editing, but their stuff is just plain boring.
Reporters who ask questions rigged to get the same answer every time aren't actually trying to ask anything — they just want to catch the moment someone's attitude turns nasty.
Um, so are you saying the media had no idea about that dangerous "peace education" program in Okinawa, or that Fukuoka lawmaker's overseas trip, until this year?
It's normal to assume they had the information all along and just chose not to report it.
That's impossible.
Likes, dislikes, whether something matches your beliefs or not — that always seeps through no matter what.
Online media is even worse, an absolute dumpster fire on top of that — a situation so bad even the "lol"s wither away.
Right?
Makes no sense.
So when it matches your own beliefs, it's suddenly not biased?
That's the real problem here — do you genuinely believe your own worldview is simply correct?
Background and Key Points of the Debate
At the heart of Kohara’s point is the structural fact that major portals like Yahoo News mostly just redistribute articles originally produced by newspapers and TV stations. He was highlighting the irony that people who repeatedly bash the “trash media” on social media are, in fact, relying on that very media as their source. The thread split over where to place the blame for distrust in reporting. Some voiced frustration over the media failing to report things it should — essentially an accusation of negligence — while others pointed to the structural reality that no outlet can ever achieve total neutrality. The exchange also revealed that social media and online outlets have developed their own biases and misinformation problems in recent years, suggesting this issue can’t be reduced to a simple old-media-versus-new-media question of who’s more trustworthy.
*This article is compiled and summarized from excerpts of the 5channel (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “Kohara Bras responds to cries of “The media sucks! Biased reporting!” with: “The source is literally the media you hate so much… maybe check it yourself.”“
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