Pressure for Fairness

Reaching the general election of the House of Representatives, Liberal Democratic Party made an unusual attempt to put a pressure on TV stations. Chief Deputy Secretary General, Kouichi Hagiuda, summoned senior journalists in his room and distributed a document that required each TV station fairness in reporting the election. Although the party dismissed its intention to oppress news media, the government had power to issue license for broadcasting. It was an obvious disturbance of freedom of speech. Where has democracy in Japan gone?

The document was delivered on 20^th of November. It demanded election reports to be impartial, neutral and fair. “The election of the House of Representatives is short term campaign and media reports may greatly affect the outcome,” it described. It specifically required TV discussion to be distributing speaking time with fairness, preserving impartiality in selecting guest speakers, topics and interview footage of ordinary citizens.

Behind the appeal of LDP, there was a frustrated Prime Minister. In the live broadcasting program for an interview of Tokyo Broadcasting System right after dissolution of the House, Shinzo Abe exposed hysteric complaint on video footage of street interview about the election, which was mostly negative on Abe’s economic policy. “It is the voices on the street. You selected it. It’s strange, isn’t it?” told Abe in front of TV camera. Some reports indicated that the pressuring action was ordered by Abe.

Most broadcasters admitted that they received the request from LDP. They uniformly told that they would fairly report as they had been. Only Japan Broadcasting Corporation, or NHK, rejected releasing comment on even whether they received it. It is unclear what is fairness. “Fairness will be interpreted as LDP likes. I can see their intention to control journalism,” told a TV reporter to Nishinippon Shimbun.

Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga, criticized the Government of South Korea on indictment of Seoul Bureau Chief of Sankei Shimbun. “It is extremely regrettable in the perspective of freedom of speech that should most be respected in democratic nation and of Japan-South Korea relation,” told Suga in the press conference on Thursday. Embarrassingly enough, his words returned to his administration.

It was not simply a matter of making things straight, because the administration had a specific power to oversee broadcasters. It is nothing but a intervention of editing right of each TV station, which a democracy would not do.