Japan's TV news in a world of its own
NHK's deadpan news style
...switch on Japan's top newscast, NHK's "News 7," and you'll be treated to something quite different.
The stories will be fewer in number and decidedly longer. So too will the video scenes, even though they may contain nothing but a single gray office building.
...the newscast will invariably end with a seasonal-cultural story. Last week, for instance, after such hard-hitting stories as the Iraq crisis and financial wrongdoing on the domestic front, viewers were told about a 100-year-old sweeping plum tree in Miyazaki Prefecture that began to blossom two weeks earlier than usual.