I Want My Favorite TV

Possibly frustrated with freedom of speech or envious of government-owned Korean Central News Agency, Japanese Minister in charge of media policy referred to halting radio wave of broadcasting station. As seen in consecutive criticisms against newspapers or TV stations by colleagues of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, pressure on liberal media is getting greater than ever. They have little sense that speeches free from political control consist of democracy.

In the discussion in Budget Committee of House of Representatives on Monday, Lawmaker So-ichiro Okuno, Democratic Party of Japan, asked Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, Sanae Takaichi, about a possibility of stopping TV business in case of broadcasting a program that is not preferable to the administration.

Takaichi drew a law to the discussion, which required the stations to be politically neutral. “Article 4 of Broadcast Act is not simply a moral obligation, but has legal norms. I cannot promise that the government will do nothing to a broadcasting station that does not respond at all to repeated request for improvement,” said Takaichi. She concluded that she could not guarantee no such case would occur in the future.

So, what would be a case of violating the neutrality clause? “It would not be recognized as keeping neutrality,” explained Takaichi, “when a program covers specific candidate in an election campaign or repeatedly cites an argument from one side on a political issue that divides national opinion.” Without clear words, Takaichi literally indicated that an administration would decide “political neutrality” of media.

In the press conference next day, Takaichi insisted that she exhibited a general interpretation of Broadcast Act and reiterated the requirement of neutrality on broadcasting stations. In the discussion on the Budget Committee later on Tuesday, she indicated that halting radio wave could be done in limited situations. According to her recognition, radio wave would be stopped when a program would apparently violate Broadcast Act and harm public interest, a station would repeat the same violation and the government could not expect voluntary regulation for abiding by the legislation.

The biggest point should be who will judge the violation. As far as listening to the words of Takaichi, it will never be the public nor each broadcasting station to determine that. It must be the government. When the government occupies the power for the regulation, political leader of the administration can arbitrarily control broadcasting. It will be no difference from despotic regime seen in the peninsula on the northwest of Japan.