User:Confusenot/Gaijin mo miteru zo

Gaijin mo miteru zo (外人も見てるぞ）was a column that appeared in the Japanese language Mainichi Shinbum from 1991 to 1993. It translates into English as "Foreigners are also watching."  It constituted a critical look at the Japanese media from a non-Japanese perspective.  It ran weekly, sandwiched between the Perspectives and Arts and Entertainment sections.

The column was begun by Dan Papia, a reporter for the Thomson Financial Network, editor at Tokyo Journal magazine, and occasional guest on Japanese talk shows. From September of 1992 to March of 1993 it was taken over by Andrea Hirsig, the Japan stringer for the British film trade magazine Moving Pictures International. This occurred because Dan Papia left Japan for a time. The final year then saw Papia and Hirsig alternately providing content.

The column was likely the first print example of regular commentary of this nature. It is worth noting that Donald Ritchie had written frequently about Japanese film since the 1950s and much of this would appear in Japanese. The Japanese public had turned very interested in how their media compared with those overseas in the late eighties and early nineties, with Japan having suddenly become the world's second largest economy.

Film and television were by far the most often considered topic of discussion, but there were also columns about the state of newspaper journalism in Japan, the country's gossipy tabloid magazines, radio, adverts and theater.

One week Dan Papia interviewed Guy Aoki, the president of a media affirmative action organization, as he was protesting outside a Westwood, California cinema on the opening night of the film Rising Sun. Papia's account of the interview provides an interesting counter perspective, particularly in light of the venue in which it was published.