マスゴミ · mass-media criticism
media criticism, one story at a time.
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There is a Japanese word -- masugomi -- a portmanteau of mass and gomi, the word for garbage. It is what people call the press when the press has stopped serving them.
This site is not a satire of media. It is an archive. Each card below documents a single story -- a headline, a quote, an act of framing -- and on the reverse, the contradiction. The retraction. The follow-up. The footnote that should have been the headline.
You will draw your own conclusions.
Headline
"Crisis averted -- experts unanimous."
— National daily, March 14
The next morning
Of the seven "experts" cited, four were employees of the company under review. Two had retracted by 9 a.m. The seventh had never agreed to be quoted.
Source: corrections column, page A22 · published a week later
Front-page lede
"Sources confirm widespread agreement on the new policy."
— Wire service, June 02
In the body, paragraph nine
"Sources" is one source. "Widespread agreement" is the same source agreeing with himself. The policy had not been written yet.
Source: the article itself, read to the end
Editorial
"The public deserves answers. We will not let this story die."
— Op-ed, July 11
Three weeks later
No follow-up was ever published. The reporter assigned to the story was reassigned. The story died, quietly, in the way stories die when the people who wrote them have moved on.
Source: the absence of further coverage · verified by archive search
Photograph caption
"Protesters clash with police outside the ministry."
— Photo wire, September 28
The wider frame
The photograph was cropped. Outside the frame: a thousand people sitting peacefully. The "clash" was three individuals, ten meters left of the ministry steps, an hour before the main event.
Source: uncropped wire service feed · metadata preserved
Television chyron
"Economy in freefall: experts blame government."
— Evening news graphic, October 05
The numbers, in context
Quarterly growth: positive. Year-on-year: positive. Unemployment: down. The "freefall" referred to a single index, briefly, on the morning of the broadcast. By evening, it had recovered.
Source: official statistics bureau · same day
Magazine cover
"The most dangerous person in the country."
— Weekly news magazine, December 03
Inside, page 47
The cover story contained no evidence of any specific danger. The phrase "most dangerous" appeared once -- in the title -- and was attributed to "an unnamed analyst." The remainder was opinion.
Source: the magazine itself · full read
Breaking news alert
"BREAKING: official confirms scandal involvement."
— Push notification, December 19, 7:42 a.m.
The retraction, two hours later
The "official" had been mistakenly identified. The named person held no related office. No correction notification was pushed. The original alert remained in 4.2 million notification histories.
Source: outlet's own retraction page · not pushed
A retraction printed on page A22 is not a retraction. It is an apology that hopes you will not read it.
Each card on this site comes from a single, verifiable artifact -- a headline, a chyron, a push alert, a caption, a wire-service feed. We do not paraphrase. We do not embellish. We document what was published, alongside what was true, and we let the gap speak.
The cards are not balanced. They are illustrative. The point is not that every outlet does this every day; the point is that some outlets do this, often, and the doing of it is normal enough that documenting it requires a website.
If you have a documented contradiction -- a primary source on one side, a published story on the other -- send it. We will read it carefully. If it stands up, it will appear here, with citations, with full provenance, and with the same slow, deliberate framing that every story on this site receives.
"The function of a free press is to expose, not to obscure; to illuminate, not to flatter. When it forgets this, the work of remembering falls to the rest of us."
Return to the topmasugomi · an archive in slow form · ongoing