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“People feast on media rubbish／The approval ratings of the Kan administration have plummeted some 15 points to a make-or-break 35 percent. This underscores how easily people in this country are swayed by the media and their chattering classes.／When the Hatoyama administration went under, it was the huge media hullabaloo over a small U.S. air base in Okinawa that turned out to be the final nail in the Cabinet's coffin.／After Democratic Party of Japan kingpin Ichiro Ozawa stepped down from the party presidency, there was similar, overblown coverage about an allegedly shady ― but minuscule ― land deal. Prosecutors initially failed to make the accusations against Ozawa stick, but the case has risen like a zombie and is due to be heard in court soon thanks to a quirk in the nation's judicial system.／More recently, overenthusiastic coverage of territorial spats with China and Russia looks set to contribute to Prime Minister Naoto Kan's downfall.”（引用続く）
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