Most news is provided in a comprehensive approach that offers consumers everything at once: Iraq battlefield coverage, the EU constitution, national elections, the stock market roller coaster, a headless corpse found in a dumpster in another city, a temper tantrum by a sports star, rumors about an actress’s love life, and last night’s rainfall.

The news sources include national and local newspapers, TV and radio news programs, news magazines, and such Internet sites as Google and Yahoo!

But readers can get an entirely different perspective on the society and culture of a country by focusing on just one particular type of story over a period of time. For example, let’s look at some actual news items covering one type of story reported in Japan over the past fortnight.

June 18
Police arrested a 61-year-old Yokohama man for trying to break into an apartment house for 30 police officers and their families when one of the women living there saw him jumping over a handrail on the veranda. Her 15-year-old son, a first-year high school student, chased him for 200 meters, caught him from behind, and held him down until the police came and arrested the intruder. The man claimed he wasn’t a thief. He said he just wanted to peep, and he didn’t realize the building was a police dormitory.

June 20
The Mainichi Shimbun reported police in Utsunomiya arrested a 30-year-old man inside a store in a shopping mall for trying to film underneath the skirt of a nursery school teacher with a video camera hidden in his shopping bag. A security guard saw him and called the police.

June 22
The local newspaper in Fukui prefecture carried a story of a 39-year-old junior high school teacher who was indicted for placing a video camera in a black plastic bag in the girls’ restroom. He turned on the switch and let the camera run for five hours. Another teacher making the rounds of the school found the camera. Police found several videos taken at similar locations on the hard disc of his computer. Not only did the teacher admit the crime, he also confessed to doing the same thing at another junior high school where he taught a few years before. He said his hobby began during his days as a university student, when he tried to peek inside women’s’ restrooms at shopping centers.

June 23
Kyodo Tsushin told the story of a 25-year-old Kanagawa Prefecture patrolman who was caught by a security guard trying to take photographs underneath the skirt of a high school student using a cell telephone. The patrolman, who was drunk at the time and on his way home, had to be restrained with handcuffs. The Kanagawa Prefecture police, however, said that he had not actually committed a crime and only docked him for three months’ salary. They did not initially report the story, but the patrolman later resigned.

June 24
A report from the Mainichi Shimbun described the arrest of a 30-year-old temporary worker in Kochi Prefecture for trying to take a photograph underneath a woman’s skirt in a bookstore using a cell telephone. Police confiscated the device and found about 30 photographs taken surreptitiously. The suspect admitting taking pictures under the skirts of about 10 women.

June 25
Back in Kanagawa Prefecture, two more police officers were caught in different train stations trying to take photographs under women’s skirts on the same day. A railroad security guard caught the first officer in the act. He also was drunk at the time and there were four incriminating photographs on his cell phone. The other officer was caught trying to take a photo underneath the skirt of an 18-year-old high school senior. She grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him to the nearest police box. Kanagawa Prefecture police did not arrest that officer either, because he had no incriminating photos on the camera, but they did dock his salary. Once again, they did not report the story, and the officer later resigned.

June 28
A 34-year-old officer with the Regional Maritime Safety Headquarters in Hokkaido was arrested for trying to sneak into the women’s restroom in a Sapporo building and surreptitiously take photos. He was suspended for a month from his duties and fined 100,000 yen (about US$ 900) by the court. A spokesman for the Regional Maritime Safety Headquarters said they would make every effort to ensure it didn’t happen again.

June 28
On the same day at the other end of Japan in Fukuoka Prefecture, the case of a 29-year-old unemployed man was sent to prosecutors after he was caught with a video camera hidden in a bag trying to film underneath the skirt of a woman in a bookstore. An investigation revealed that he had clandestinely filmed the nether regions of nearly 200 females, most of them junior high school girls. The man favored the bookstore as his shooting location; he is suspected of visiting the store 59 times since July 2002. Police say he confessed and told them he was going to try to sell his film library.

June 28
Also on the same day, the Kyoto Shimbun reported that a 29-year-old factory worker was arrested when—you guessed it—he was caught trying to film underneath the skirt of a 15-year-old junior high school girl. The girl also caught this guy in the act, and shouted out for help. A man passing by on his bicycle on his way to work chased the suspect for 50 meters and held him until police arrived.

And where were all these stories found, you may ask? A sports daily? An RSS feed for people with kinky tastes? Nope.

They all were presented as one of the features on this website, called Nozokix. Nozoki in Japan means to peep, and is the first word in the phrase for “peep show”. The website has been set up for the purpose of displaying films taken of women without their knowledge.

One featurette presents films the site claims were taken while anesthesia was being administered at a gynecology clinic. Others include scenes inside bathhouses (with a special mention being made of a scene with a blonde brushing her teeth) and high school girls putting on a striptease inside the privacy of a karaoke booth.

Yes, this does sound illegal, and I have no idea how they get away with it. Still, I have to give the people who run the site credit for their sense of humor in reporting the arrests of their potential suppliers.

ADVISORY: The site is entirely in Japanese, though a look at the stills on the homepage and the page inside will give you a pretty good idea of what’s going on there. I did not look at any of the films, and spent most of my time reading these articles on the right sidebar. As far as I could tell from my limited tour of the site, you have to pay to see some of these, in yen by transferring funds through a Japanese bank.