Walk This Way, Broadcasters

On Friday, Liberal Democratic Party held a hearing from Japan Broadcasting Corporation, or NHK, and TV Asahi about current doubts on fabrication of a program or unusual criticism on Shinzo Abe administration. Although it was a closed meeting, no one believed that the action was not aimed at oppressing inconvenient reports against the administration. Paying no attention to the criticism on deteriorated democracy, the administration is going further to be involved in media censoring.

NHK ran a documentary program called “Close Up Gendai,” in which it accused a new type of theft with false name obtained through religious ritual and deceived financial corporation to get money. But, the broker who instructed the man for the theft revealed that he was told by a producer of NHK to pretend to be a broker. The program was doubted as a fiction.

In “News Station” of TV Asahi, former bureaucrat in Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Yoshiaki Koga, abruptly interpreted the program and started denouncing Abe administration of bashing on him. He raised a panel reading “I am not Abe,” resembling the movement supporting French magazine assaulted by terrorists, “Je suis Charlie.” Koga believed that the end of his contract as a commentator in the program for the day was a result of pressure from Prime Minister’s Official Residence on TV Asahi.

At the beginning of the hearing, Chairman of Strategic Committee for Information and Telecommunication of LDP, Jiro Kawasaki, told that he held a doubt that the programs had twisted the truth. Kawasaki indicated to the reporters after the meeting that LDP would consider participating in Broadcasting Ethics & Program Improvement Organization (BPO), which was run by NHK and private broadcasting stations for voluntary maintenance of moral obligation. As broadcasters hesitate in protesting aggression, Abe administration advances into detailed contents of TV programs.

Article 4 of Broadcasting Law demands every station to be politically neutral. The provision was determined with reflection of wartime intervention of the government in broadcasters, which was coercively to be supportive for the administration. Incident in NHK or TV Asahi was not made by a purpose supportive for specific political power.

If LDP intervenes in the programs of broadcasting station, it will be a violation of Broadcasting Law that requires political neutrality. In this administration ignoring the supreme law, Constitution of Japan, violation of a law for communication might be a trivial issue. But, this tendency will put Japan one step away from the world community of freedom and democracy.