TV Asahi Quiz Show cooks up Fake Blogs for Clues

Posted on January 13th, 2009 by Masaru IKEDA

Tokyo-headquartered private TV broadcaster TV-Asahi used fake blog sites on its quiz show, fabricated by the program’s production staff as a real news source for the show’s questions, and as a result, the broadcaster is being heavily criticized by audiences and TV watchdogs.

The show was broadcast nationwide in Japan during last weekend’s prime time, and is a quiz show investigating whether superstitions and conventional beliefs actually work in real life. The anchorperson introduced six blog websites as examples of information collected via the Internet, which were presented as possible clues to the questions in the show.

TV-Asahi acknowledged the suspicion that the blog sites introduced in the program were fake, and it apologized for the fraud.

TV-Asahi is well-known as the broadcaster that world media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Softbank founder Masayoshi Son attempted to buy a major stake in a dozen years ago. Also, the broadcaster is infamous due to another scandal from two decades ago, in which it used actresses portraying crime victims in interview videos for news programming, a first in the Japanese TV industry’s 50-year history.

Author Information Masaru IKEDA has co-founded several system integration companies and consulting firms in Tokyo. He has been contributing serial columns to nationwide newspapers and IT periodicals, also he's currently serving as tech consultant for several web companies. See this for more bio. His private blog is here.

Tags: Japan, News //

5 Responses to “TV Asahi Quiz Show cooks up Fake Blogs for Clues”

OpenWeb.Asia - OpenWeb Asia Workgroup // Jan 10, 2009 at 2:27 am

AsiajinTV Asahi Quiz Show cooks up Fake Blogs for CluesSurprise Automatic Withdrawal Angers Japanese ISP Kai’s Customers “Is that a VAIO in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” Cyber Agent Investments Organizes Business Plan Competition
Asahi TV created fake blogs to cite as source material | Japan Probe // Jan 13, 2009 at 10:00 pm

[...] [via Asiajin] [...]
Lisa // Jan 14, 2009 at 12:27 am

TV Asahi has one other faking scandal in its past—nearly two decades ago, it was caught using actors to portray crime victims in a news video. For shame, TV Asahi. This is definitely not how one should take advantage of the Internet revolution. viaAsiajin
TechieLobang - News, Tips & Tricks - Get Updated on Technology Plus All Other Interesting Things // Jan 19, 2009 at 5:47 am

You can read the Full Story Here.
Global Voices Online » Japan: Bloggers on TV-Asahi and “Uso Basutaa” // Jan 24, 2009 at 12:49 pm

[...] been the reaction of many Japanese bloggers over the last week who felt cheated by TV Asahi after it turned out that in the variety show ウソバスター！ (Uso Basutaa!, lit. lie buster), broadcast prime [...]
Digital Influence Mapping Project // Jan 28, 2009 at 5:00 am

There are very few marketers (I am hoping) who would consciously create a blog where the author was not who they say they are unless it was done as a crystal clear parody or character blog. Although there aresurprises every day like TV Asahi out of Japan. On a recent quiz show: “The anchorperson introduced six blog websites as examples of information collected via the Internet, which were presented as possible clues to the questions in the show.TV-Asahi acknowledged the suspicion that the blog
Global Voices en Français // Jan 28, 2009 at 2:37 pm

Chaude réaction des blogueurs japonais qui se sont sentis trompés la semaine dernière par la TV Asahi après larévélation(anglais) que dans le spectacle de variétés ウソバスター！(Uso Basutaa !,lit. Chasse aux mensonges) retransmis en première heure le 10 Janvier, les blogs indiqués comme sources avaient été cré&

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