If you pay more than peanuts

摘要

In many parts of the world, journalists would be unable to resist a good political slush-fund scandal. In Japan, information is dribbling out about a murky stash of cash kept in a black box near the prime minister's office that for decades has been used to curry political favour-even, it is said, among journalists and television commentators. Tellingly, the Japanese media are reacting to the scandal like the three wise monkeys of Nikko: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.