How Kisha Clubs Change Journalism "The broad goal of the nation's key media players, like that of its government leaders, is to limit access to the central halls of power to a carefully chosen few," researcher Laurie Freeman, a political science professor at UC Santa Barbara, wrote in her book "Closing the Shop: Information Cartels and Japans Mass Media." Freeman writes that the press clubs in Japan control the flow of information -- often preventing the members from publishing important details. The clubs set rules on what can and cannot be published, and those who disobey the rules can be kicked out of the system.
And the close relationships with sources encouraged by the system make press club reporters less inclined to publish negative reports. In her essay "Japan's Press Clubs as Information Cartels," Freeman describes a day in the life of a press club reporter: "With the exception of a category of journalists known as yugun, or roving reporters, the press clubs serve as 'home base' for the majority of Japanese journalists. Typically arriving at their respective clubs early to mid-morning, Japanese journalists begin their day by reviewing the morning editions of rival newspapers, checking for any missed information. This may be followed by attendance at a regularly scheduled news conference, a post-conference kondan or informal briefing, a lecture on a related topic, or other activities having to do with the reporting of current events.
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"Most good journalism doesn't get done in kisha clubs. They're inimical to everything that good journalism is."
--Howard French, the New York Times |
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"Journalists also leave the clubs to pursue stories and conduct interviews, but even these activities are carried out in an institutionalized fashion, and frequently as a group. Younger journalists covering the major political parties or the police and prosecutors' offices, for example, often spend a considerable portion of their day conducting morning and nightly rounds known as asamawari and yomawari. ? From early morning until quite late at night groups of (often neophyte) journalists follow powerful individuals with whom they ultimately develop very close (and at times quite deferential) relationships."Promising young political journalists, for example, are often assigned to cover LDP faction bosses. These journalists, known as ban journalists (ban kisha) frequently start their day by going straight to the politician's home, arriving at about 7:30 in the morning. Together with journalists from other news organizations they greet the politician and then follow him or her around for most of the day, waiting for any tidbit of news that might be offered. In addition to gathering information, a good deal of time and effort is spent developing friendly relations with the politician they cover." The only way to repair what's wrong with journalism in Japan is to abolish the press club system, Freeman writes. Some defenders of the system say it makes Japan the most competitive country in the world when it comes to domestic news, and that members are willing to run the risk of club censure if the story is big enough. "The kisha club system ? facilitates access to information possessed by public institutions and other sources," the NSK kisha guidelines say. "As a result, fast and accurate reporting becomes possible, allowing more in-depth news gathering and reporting. "Kisha clubs are organizations where the 'joint force of journalists' is demonstrated, while being based on the individual activity of journalists," the guidelines continue. "No kisha club should constrain the individual activity of journalists." The first press club was formed in 1890 to pressure the secretive Imperial Diet to open up the corridors of power to journalists and public scrutiny. The NSK says they have been keeping these corridors open ever since by having the kisha club housed in the same buildings as their sources, whether it be the prime minister's office, the parliamentary Diet building or even local police agencies. There is a risk that without the press club system, access to officials and information would diminish, NSK officials said. "By losing the press club, whose strength is observing the government, there arises a fear of it becoming more difficult to reach the citizens with information the government considers inconvenient. ... Shouldn't we take advantage of the kisha clubs as a pressure group to urge more freedom of information?" But even insiders sometimes chafe at the price of membership: The NSK recently agreed to limit their coverage of the kidnapping and recent return of Japanese nationals by North Korea out of respect for the abducted and their families, "assigning only a limited number of pre-selected reporters to ask questions at joint news conferences." But according to the group's latest newsletter, "reporters are losing their patience. Some say they can't ask the questions they want and therefore lack the information they need. Others say that acquiescing to the current restraints sets a bad precedent." The newsletter adds, "The restrictions on coverage leave the media with little other than bland, uniform reports, ruling out any competitive search for the truth." A Crack in the Wall? The arguments for and against the kisha system have been repeated for decades to no effect, but the fight may be different this time for several reasons. For one thing, this is the first time that Japan has been put on formal notice by a major trade partner that the clubs could be judged a trade barrier by the World Trade Organization. If that happens, Japanese reporters overseas could theoretically be barred from their beats or could suffer some other sort of sanctioned retaliatory action. Another difference is that the foreign press has recently gained some other new cage-rattling Japanese allies that also want to see the clubs disappear. A case awaiting attention from the Supreme Court could challenge the government's right to chose to release official information to just kisha members: After being denied access to court materials during a case he was covering -- materials only provided to club members -- Japanese freelance magazine journalist Terasawa Yu has sued, lost and appealed his way to the Supreme Court. The court has not yet decided if it will take the case, which it has been sitting on for two years. But if it does and finds in Yu's favor, there will be legal pressure from Japan's highest court to at least refashion, and possibly eliminate, the kisha club system. Politicians are getting into the act too: In 2001, as one of his first acts in office, Yasuo Tanaka, the governor of Nagano Prefecture, kicked out the three press clubs that covered the Nagano government, and created one press center that was open to any journalist from any publication. "It is the individual journalist who must stand at the center of all kinds of reporting activities," said Tanaka at the time. "This is the foundation of a society with a responsible approach to information and the press." Similarly, Ken Takeuchi -- the former mayor of Kamakura City and now editor of an independent online newspaper called JanJan -- broke up the municipal press club and created an open media center in its place. "Outside of Kamakura and Nagano, Japan's press club system remains almost unchanged today," he said. Takeuchi was the keynote speaker at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan's March 15 symposium (pdf) on the kisha system. A former reporter, Takeuchi compared kisha club reporters to a kind of farm fed fish. "They don't taste as good because they don't go upriver under their own force," he said. "They can't find their own food."
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