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Asahi Revisits NHK Censorship Allegations
In a two-page spread consolidating the results of some 150 interviews it conducted since the Jan. 12 story, The Asahi concluded that its original findings were largely justified, though it admitted it lacked proof to back up some of its claims.
"Though NHK continues to insist that its revisions were self-directed, our new reporting leads us to believe that the structure we described in the article of pressure from politicians leading to programming changes has become even clearer," wrote Masahiko Yokoi, city news editor of The Asahi's Tokyo edition.
The Original Story
The original story concerned last-minute revisions made to an NHK documentary that featured an unsanctioned war tribunal held in Tokyo in 2000 to consider Japan's moral responsibility for the so-called "comfort women" who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese army during World War II (For more background, see Wikipedia’s entry on “comfort women”). Attracting particular attention was the fact that organizers of the tribunal sought to declare the late Emperor Hirohito personally responsible for the "comfort stations," which they saw as vehicles of institutionalized rape and sexual abuse.
The right wing was horrified by the tribunal, as well as by the fact that Japan's public broadcaster was attempting to make a documentary about it. In its report, written four years after the documentary aired, The Asahi said that two leading neo-nationalist politicians in Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had summoned NHK officials prior to the broadcast and had pressured them to modify the program's content.
However, soon after publication several of The Asahi's key witnesses changed or disavowed their stories, throwing its conclusions into question. Shinzo Abe, then deputy chief cabinet secretary, denied pressuring the broadcaster, though he confirmed that he had met with NHK prior to the program's airing. By contrast, Shoichi Nakagawa, who was a leading member in a group of parliamentarians seeking more nationalist content in Japanese history textbooks, said he didn't even meet with NHK until after the program had been released. And finally, Takeshi Matsuo, NHK's former executive director in charge of broadcasting, denied that he had been "pressured" to censor the film, as The Asahi had reported.
The Asahi refused, however, to apologize or retract its claims, despite coming under severe attack from right wing critics in the ruling party and the media. Instead, it initiated a reinvestigation, and largely kept its silence until this week. (For two excellent summaries of the complicated chain of events, see Gavan McCormack’s “War and Japan's Memory Wars” and Tessa Morris-Suzuki's “Free Speech – Silenced Voices: The Japanese Media and the NHK Affair").
New Revelations
The Asahi notes that the most important new finding to come out of its reinvestigation was that NHK's top lobbyist personally supervised the re-editing of the documentary down to its details, immediately following a meeting with ruling party politicians, which included Abe. Nevertheless, The Asahi also acknowledges that it could find no further proof on two points: that Abe and Nakagawa had themselves requested the meeting with NHK, and that Nakagawa had met with NHK prior to the broadcast, rather than afterwards, as he now claims.
Ironically, it may not be The Asahi's mammoth efforts, but revelations by NHK itself that are shedding the most light on the issue. Last week, as reported in the Mainichi Shimbun, NHK filed affidavits from five former officials as part of its suit by Violence Against Women in War – Network Japan (VAWW-Net Japan). That NGO, which had been a major consultant to the documentary and was also the local organizer of the tribunal, had sued NHK after the documentary aired in 2001, alleging that NHK had violated the terms by which it had agreed to cooperate with VAWW-Net Japan. NHK was cleared in 2004, but that decision is now under appeal.
The affidavits show, for instance, that the one of the senior producers in charge of the documentary had been summoned by then NHK President Katsuji Ebisawa just prior to the completion of the program, who told her, "There are many different opinions surrounding this issue [the war tribunal]. Whatever you do, please be very cautious." The producer immediately mentioned his comment to Executive Director Matsuo, and after that, scenes of interviews with surviving comfort women were ordered pared down.
Another affidavit from chief NHK lobbyist Naoki Nojima revealed that his staff, who routinely visit 450 parliamentarians each year during budget-making season (NHK's budget must be approved by Parliament), were warned that NHK would be asked about the documentary at its budget requisition hearings. For that reason, he decided to bring Executive Director Matsuo along with him to explain its content at a meeting with Abe, one day before the program was due to air. It was that meeting, and what was discussed there, that forms the basis of The Asahi's claim that NHK was pressured into editing the documentary.
Reactions
No sooner had the ink hit the page last Monday, than NHK fired back a rebuttal. "[The writers] haven't added any new facts to the core argument of their article, such as how the politicians pressured NHK and in what way the program changed," NHK Executive Director General of Broadcasting Toyohiko Harada said at a press conference, as quoted in the Yomiuri Shimbun. "The accusation made by the whistleblower, which was the original impetus for the investigation, was based on nothing more than hearsay. The claims were unsound from the very beginning."
"NHK has never succumbed to political pressure to change one of its programs, and it never will," he said.
Predictably, critics are mixed on how the new revelations have altered the debate, if at all.
On the right, they point out that The Asahi was unable to disprove Nakagawa's statement that he didn’t meet with NHK until after the documentary was shown, or its claim that Abe and Nakagawa summoned NHK, rather than the other way around. These two points, they argue, are critical to prove its case that political pressure was applied.
On the other hand, "What is clear, and was in January for that matter," wrote Australian National University Professor Gavan McCormack in an e-mail exchange with JMR, "is that there is a dango-like [collusive] relationship between the LDP and the national broadcaster, one more corrupt nexus that has grown over the 50 years of LDP in almost unbroken office."
Former ambassador to Lebanon Naoto Amaki (known for having been fired because of his opposition to Japan's support of the Iraq war), notes that the combination of the Asahi and Mainichi articles "make clear that NHK altered the program's content for political reasons. The issue, though, is whether that was due to political pressure or not ... There's no way that either Abe or Nakagawa will confirm that they pressured NHK. Nor will NHK acknowledge hav[ing] been pressured to make the changes. What constitutes pressure is ultimately in the mind of the people involved. That's why this issue can never be resolved ...” he said.
The Stalemate Continues
But that's not for lack of trying. The LDP continues to call on The Asahi to participate in a public panel discussion of the issue, rather than respond to The Asahi's requests to re-interview the principals since it feels it cannot get a fair hearing on the pages of The Asahi. To date, however, the newspaper has refused to participate.
The Asahi, for its part, held the first meeting this week of a panel it has created of ostensibly disinterested experts to consider its findings on NHK. Each of the participants, however, is already acting as an advisor to the paper. At the first meeting, at which Asahi President Kotaro Akiyama and four other staffers attended, the panelists considered whether, for instance, The Asahi should have identified its finding that politicians pressured NHK as opinion rather than fact.
More encouraging, perhaps, was the news released this week that a number of NHK insiders have formed a group calling on NHK management to keep a greater distance from politicians. According to Kyodo News, 40 members of the program production department and Special Programs Center (two key divisions that handle program production at NHK) assembled in May and urged NHK to revise its code of ethics such that it would no longer explain the specifics of individual programs with politicians. NHK's response, however, appears to have been cool. It says an internal committee has reviewed the proposal and has already responded to the group.
© 2002-2006 Japan Media Review.
