Credibility crisis

TOKYO— — Reeling from a series of scandals, the top official of the Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK), this country’s sole public radio and television broadcaster, resigned last week to “take responsibility” and save face for NHK, which is financed by receiver fees paid by each household that owns a TV set.

Japan also has a number of commercial television networks financed by advertising revenue, but NHK is the “official” and most authoritative broadcast outlet.

Its disgraced executive, Katsuji Ebisawa, stepped down as the network was dealt a severe blow by embezzlement scandals involving its employees and suspicions that it caved to pressure from leading politicians over a documentary about brothels of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.

Shinzo Abe, acting secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Shoichi Nakagawa had urged NHK to alter the documentary about sex slaves, the mass circulation daily Asahi Shimbun reported.

Last month, Satoru Nagai, an NHK producer, said tearfully that those working on the World War II historical documentary “were ordered to alter the program before it was aired” because of “political pressure.” The program originally included a mock trial, conducted in 2000, that found the late Emperor Hirohito guilty of permitting the sexual enslavement of tens of thousands of Asian women during World War II, Mr. Nagai said. He was ordered to delete that segment as well as testimony from former sex slaves, he said.

NHK and Mr. Abe and Mr. Nakagawa repeatedly have denied the charge.

Yasushi Kawasaki, a former NHK political reporter who teaches journalism at Sugiyama Women’s University in Nagoya, said he believed the claims of political pressure.

He said NHK has many hardworking journalists with a sense of mission, but they can’t speak out under “the regime of terror,” because Mr. Ebisawa still wields considerable influence. Mr. Kawasaki was forced out of a career track at the network after his coverage of the faction of the late Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was pulled off the air because of pressure from the LDP.

Like other leaders of news organizations, Mr. Ebisawa used to cover major LDP factions. Mr. Kawasaki, however, said the disgraced NHK ex-president “was not a political reporter, but a politician boosting his backroom influence.” As in Mr. Ebisawa’s case, Japanese mainstream media long have been criticized as having cozy relations with those in power.

“The worst thing a journalist can do is become a servant of those in power,” said Minoru Morita, a Tokyo-based political analyst and commentator for major networks. “Unfortunately, Japanese journalism today is not really independent.

“I believe one of the basic purposes of journalism is to give hope to the underprivileged. Journalists should pursue their job with love, I would say, humanism. They should also seriously seek truth. That is a fundamental rule.”

If that is a rule, it is not taken seriously in Japan, critics say. Moreover, the major press outlets seem to be erasing lines between journalism and big businesses.

Shuntaro Torigoe, who worked for the daily Mainichi Shimbun and the Sunday Mainichi, a weekly magazine, is an award-winning journalist at TV Asahi and other stations as well as a professor of journalism at Kansai University in Osaka.

But Mr. Torigoe, who discusses ethical issues in journalism in his books, appeared in a TV drama and in commercials selling insurance. Asked about the apparent contradiction between what he says and what he does, the professor complained: “Do I have to answer such things all of the time?”

Mr. Torigoe then said he had no comment; Kansai University also declined to comment.

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