On Jan. 16 Tokyo public prosecutors raided Livedoor’s headquarters in the high-rise Roppongi Hills development. The ensuing blanket media coverage detailed alleged misdeeds, including stock market manipulation and falsifying accounts to conceal losses. The Tokyo bourse reacted quickly; the unexpected raid causing a massive sell-off of Livedoor stock, swamping the exchange’s computer system, and forcing the bourse to close 20 minutes early on Jan. 18. Five days later Horie and three top Livedoor executives were arrested and taken into custody.

Livedoor was founded in 1997 by Tokyo University dropout Horie with start-up capital of just $50,000 (6 million yen). The Yahoo-style portal site grew through a series of takeovers into a group of 44 separate companies and five related companies employing 2,500 people. Horie’s audacious but failed attempts to buy one of Japan’s baseball teams and later to takeover the Fujisankei media conglomerate made him probably Japan’s best known businessman. Horie even stood (unsuccessfully) as an independent candidate in the general election last September.

But while Horie has attracted the admiration of many for his self-confidence and success, he has also attracted the enmity of Japan’s old guard. His detractors accuse him of arrogance and greed. One of Horie’s bestselling business books is titled “Who Earns Wins.” He boasted of his ambition to set up a space tourism business and even hinted that he might one day see himself as prime minister. Horie reportedly chose his 38th floor Roppongi Hills headquarters because it was the only place in Tokyo that he could look down on Tokyo Tower.

Yet, is it too soon to write Horie off? The media seem to presume Horie’s guilt, even before a trial that, judging by other high profile cases in Japan, could well last years. Horie has not yet been officially charged, and much of the coverage has relied on anonymous quotes from the Tokyo prosecutors’ office. The media that once lionized Horie are now dragging him down with equal enthusiasm. Aera magazine devoted 11 pages to the scandal – including an interview with Horie’s father. Another weekly tabloid, Friday magazine, ran the headline: “Tokyo prosecutors’ office reveals: ‘Horie [planned] to evade taxes by going into space.’”

What does the future hold in store for Horie? Some already foretell eventual rehabilitation. “It may be difficult to rebuild Livedoor, but Horie may emerge as a wounded hero,” suggested Nihon Keizai Shimbun columnist Yasuhiro Tase, speaking at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan last month. After their avid coverage of Horie’s downfall, “the mass media will welcome him back with open arms,” predicted TV Asahi political commentator Soichiro Tahara.

Japan Media Review spoke to Internet entrepreneur and Japan Inc. magazine publisher Terrie Lloyd about Horie’s rise and fall. Both an Australian and New Zealand national, Lloyd arrived in Japan 22 years ago. Like Takafumi Horie, he has been involved with online business since well before the Japanese Internet took off at the end of the 1990s.

This is an edited transcript of interviews conducted by telephone and e-mail.

Japan Media Review: When did you first come across Horie?

Terrie Lloyd: It would have been in the mid-1990s. It was just a little two-bit company and he was kind of a weird guy. [The] Internet was still just getting started back then. It is true that the Internet didn’t really take off in Japan until about 1998 or 1999, and that was because of broadband.

I had just started an Internet business. We were in a similar space. As I recall, he started off by doing server hosting and then very quickly got involved in [mergers and acquisitions] and consulting. His rise to fame has been very recent – in the last three years.

JMR: What was he like back then?

TL: He has always had a disdain for authority. He struck me back then as somebody who was a bit airheaded actually, in other words very ambitious and full of all the things he could do, and unaware of some of the restrictions that were around. Of course, that’s exactly what he turned out to be. He was always very smart though.

JMR: Is it true that he bought Livedoor to get the name?

TL: That’s true. That’s what he said when I interviewed him [for Japan Inc.], that business was losing lots of money. But there was another reason, obviously, and that would be 150,000 freeloading subscribers that he could convert to some of his other services.

JMR: Did you have any inkling he would become so big?

TL: No, it wasn’t obvious at all. Not considering his business model, no core to the business. Fundamentally, the business turned out to be smoke and mirrors.

It was his downfall because when there is no core to your business you are only as good as your last deal in terms of profit flow. So you have to do more and more deals — which means you tend to cut corners. If you cut corners, you break the law.

However, I will say that what he does is not particularly different to what I have seen other people do. I think most successful businessmen in this country have probably cut corners somewhere along the way, and if you look hard enough you will find what it was. The authorities know this, so if someone transgresses too much, well they have always got something to find out and have over you.

JMR: So he cut too many corners?

TL: It was sticking his finger up at people that he should have had a little more respect and time for. It is hard to say who is orchestrating this witch-hunt, but it is a witch-hunt because what he has done is not particularly bad. There has to be some political influence behind it, in my opinion.

JMR: Some people have spoken of a conspiracy?

TL: I don’t know if you can call it a conspiracy. I would say that someone has been doing some dedicated digging at least since the Fuji TV affair to find dirt on Horie, and it was only a matter of time before they found it. It’s pretty obvious because they had to dig all the way back to 2003 to find the ValueClick deal in order to get him arrested.

Once the prosecutor’s department knows there’s a problem, they have to go after the person. But, obviously, someone blew the whistle.

JMR: Do you think he will be convicted?

TL: Personally, I think the charges are really trumped up, like the Yomiuri Shimbun saying he bought the company for more than five times the proper value. There are plenty of instances of companies being bought for more than the book value. That activity in itself is not illegal, unless you knew that you were unofficially pumping up the values.

But you have to wonder where exactly the line can be drawn between gray and illegal, because in this country it is not clear at all.

JMR: Were you surprised at the speed of Horie’s downfall? Is Livedoor really a castle built on the sand as some people are saying?

TL: He hasn’t had his downfall necessarily yet. He’s only under interrogation. So he will get out. I assume he is the major shareholder in his company. If that is the case, he can replace the board and the management at any time.

JMR: Is this the Japanese Enron?

TL: No, it’s not comparable at all. The scope is completely different, we are not talking about anywhere near the same amount of money. And there was never the performance that [Enron CEO Kenneth] Lay and the others allegedly did in the [United] States saying everything was dandy, when in fact it wasn’t. Now, it is true that they say Horie covered up the core company’s losses by transferring profits from other companies, but nevertheless as a group the company was profitable. Although that’s not kosher, it’s not outright lying as we saw at Enron.

JMR: Why do you think the media turned against Horie so abruptly?

TL: That’s just the Japanese media; they are always looking for the next hot story. There are no alliances or allegiances, they couldn’t care less. Some lean left, some lean right, so they tend to protect their own. But Horie was a mean little upstart capitalist; he didn’t really fall into any one media’s bailiwick, so of course none of them are going to protect him.

It’s his own fault, he decided that the way he was going to increase his stock was by [promoting] himself in front of the nation, which, needless to say, gave him a lot of exposure. Now he’s got that same exposure working against him.

JMR: When Horie tried to buy the Fujisankei Group he said that he wanted to bring the Japanese media up to date. Do you think his arrest is going to delay the media’s integration with the Internet?

TL: He changed it to a certain extent. He allowed independent media to be more important. He made a great business out of blogging. Has he changed the conservative incumbent media? No. They are being changed by market forces, not by Horie; the defection to computers; the explosion of 3G cell-phones; the prevalence of free papers. There are many, many different attacks taking place on the traditional media.

JMR: What do you think is going to happen to Horie now?

TL: Two weeks ago, I thought that he would get off the hook. Now I think that he will get hit with some charges, but I don’t think the trial will go as smoothly or as clearly as people expect. I think he will be quite uncooperative. And then, who knows, maybe they will throw the book at him because he was a nasty boy, not because he actually broke any laws.

Or, alternatively, they may back down and give him a suspended sentence – get the trial over quickly so that they don’t have to listen to him rant on day after day. It is hard to say whether he is going to do a Saddam [Hussein], or whether he is just going to go quietly.

JMR: Might the media help rehabilitate Horie one day?

TL: The have vilified him beyond all belief. They did the same thing with Yoshiaki Tsutsumi [ex-chief of the Seibu Railways group] who, in my opinion, did worse things than Horie did – and he got a suspended sentence. He committed fraud by using a holding company to manipulate the shares of Seibu railways.

At least it appears Horie wasn’t knowingly padding his own pocket – he was just building his own company. With Tsutsumi it was sneaky thievery over a long period of time. Mind you, [Tsutsumi] did the right thing; as soon they arrested him he apologized, he said it was all his fault. And the result was that he was chastised and let go.

JMR: If convicted, is there a chance he might come out of prison a quieter, humbler Horie?

TL: If he is smart he will. But you have got to wonder about his personality sometimes.

Japan has a number of its own citizen journalism projects, notably a “public journalism” site, which is part of Internet entrepreneur Horie Takafumi’s Livedoor News Web site. But despite Horie once vowing to “kill Japanese newspapers and TV,” citizen journalism seems to have barely landed a blow as yet. Site traffic is modest, and professional journalists have seemed critical and wary of the new competition. By way of contrast, in neighboring South Korea, citizen journalism Web site OhmyNews has more than 40,000 citizen and full-time reporters and once logged 25 million page views in a single day.

Japan Media Review spoke to Dan Gillmor about citizen journalism in the United States, South Korea and Japan. As well as considering why citizen journalists have had so little success thus far challenging Japan’s “old” media, Gillmor spoke about how citizen journalism has the potential to change media everywhere.

This is an edited transcript of interviews conducted by telephone and e-mail.

Japan Media Review: You have just set up the Center for Citizen Media. What is the project’s aim and would you describe it as “civic journalism”?

Dan Gillmor: Civic journalism was really about news organizations setting public agendas and being more directly involved with community affairs. The public civic journalism that people talked about was exclusively about big organizations or the local equivalent of mass media doing the agenda setting. The thing that I am focused on is bottom up as opposed to top down. I am involved with the citizen media idea – the democratization of the tools and the distribution – the idea that anyone can do it. I’m very anxious that the existing media organizations participate in this themselves and encourage people in their audiences to participate.

JMR: How does that compare to a project like OhmyNews in South Korea that started off in opposition to the mainstream media?

DG: It was exclusively independent of the main media when they set it up. Their whole goal was to be an alternative, and it was under conditions that are not at all like the conditions in the U.S. You had three newspapers that had a substantial majority among them of all the circulation in Seoul and much of the country. That’s a monolithic media quite unlike anything in the U.S. And those three were very much tied to the power structure in a very fundamental way. While the media in the U.S. tend to be kind of corporate, they are not in general locked into the power structure.

JMR: Do you have any idea why Japan hasn’t come up with any citizen journalism project on the scale of OhmyNews?

DG: I don’t think I am an expert enough on Japan, but Japan has had a very different history with the Internet until the last several years. Internet access was very, very expensive. At the same time the Japanese were one of the two or three world leaders in mobile communications, so a lot of what people have done there that is advanced has been in the mobile area. 2 Channel [a popular Internet discussion board], which is probably the most interesting early experiment, was pretty radical for Japan.

JMR: 2 Channel is hugely popular – reportedly the world’s largest Internet discussion board – but it has been heavily criticized by the Japanese media.

DG: I can understand why. A lot of anonymous chatter is not the same as citizen journalism. At a very basic level, if one doesn’t stand behind one’s own words it is possible that it is journalism, but it is likely that it is not.

JMR: How do you progress from an anonymous and chaotic bulletin board like 2 Channel to a citizen journalism movement?

DG: There is a lot of interesting information on that site and a lot of data, but it is not something I would call journalism. You can learn a lot [on 2 Channel] – from what I understand from people who have told me about it. The problem is that if you are wise you start off with the bias that it is likely to be false, and that maybe there is some truth in there, but who knows? At least that’s my bias when I see anonymous [postings].

JMR: Isn’t that also a problem in citizen journalism?

DG: We are going to have to change what we think of as media literacy, among other things. You have to change attitudes on two sides. One is persuading people who are doing citizen journalism, that if they really want to do journalism that it involves more than just writing down their views. It also means more responsibility on the part of the audience to not assume that everything written is going to be true.

JMR: What are your impressions of the civil journalism movement in Japan?

DG: I would say that there is clearly some interest in this in Japan. They published my book [“We the Media. Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People”] and to my astonishment put me on the cover of Aera [a Japanese weekly magazine]. [Takafumi] Horie endorsed my book, which was really amazing. He has clearly been pushing the envelope on this.

JMR: There are several citizen journalism projects in Japan, but the media seem to be somewhat standoffish.

DG: Ask them what would happen if they did [support citizen journalism]. Would the [press] club throw them out? In a place where access is so dependent on being a member of this club it is easy to see why major media are taking it slowly.

JMR: Are the Japanese media scared of losing their monopoly?

DG: Well, they are scared of it here too. But the bigger issue in America is not the competition journalistically. I think that’s a side issue. The changes here are coming about almost entirely because the business model is unraveling and everyone is scared. News companies, the bosses, are thinking, ‘Oh my God, we are losing all our advertising,’ and the journalists are starting to realize that their jobs are in real jeopardy. People are experimenting, it’s not like anyone has found an answer.

Classified ads in particular are disappearing onto the Web and newspapers are losing their single most profitable revenue. That’s tending to focus their attention: local newspapers in particular, but [also] advertising in general.

JMR: The Japanese media is much more centralized than the U.S. media with few local newspapers reliant on classified ads. Could that help explain why citizen journalism hasn’t taken off here?

DG: So it will take longer for the business questions to become obvious. They will eventually. It’s a big upheaval.

JMR: Why is the involvement of professional journalists in citizen journalism important?

DG: They need to do more listening and conversing and a little less lecturing. That’s because I think news is fundamentally a conversation and not a lecture; and when journalists realize that they do better journalism.

It would certainly help a lot, give it more obvious legitimacy. The failure to participate won’t stop this, but the participation will certainly accelerate it and maybe will help save the media from otherwise major potential catastrophe.

JMR: And that goes for Japan too?

DG: I assume it’s true [for Japan too]. I am confident that this is true everywhere, that journalists will do better journalism if they think of the process more as a conversation than as a lecture. Period. Having said that, these things will develop in different ways in different places.

JMR: What is the connection between citizen journalism and democracy? How about in a country like Japan where the same party has been in power almost uninterruptedly for over half a century?

DG: I think it’s a fairly simple connection. The more engaged someone becomes with current events, the more likely one is to be a well-informed person. And being well informed is the key to being a good citizen.

JMR: Many people have criticized journalistic standards in citizen journalism. How do you respond to people like [South African academic] Vincent Maher who say that “citizen journalism is dead”?

DG: I thought in the end that he and I agreed on more than we disagreed on. What’s going on now is a snapshot in time and it is going to change. I think that if we can do this right, it is just going to get better. [That’s] in terms of journalism. I don’t have any predictions in terms of the journalism business, that’s a much tougher question.

It’s fair to say that a lot of what people have tried to do has failed, but that doesn’t mean that the idea is a bad one, or that the trend is going to stop. Anything that is radically evolutionary is not going to proceed either on a straight path or on an exponential curve. It’s going to have ups and downs on the way. But I think that the overall trajectory is positive.

JMR: What will be the next step for citizen journalism?

DG: I think the next steps will be more acceptance by the major media, a thousand different experiments, a lot of learning and adaptation. When I said evolutionary I really meant that. It’s a process of many different things being tried, many if not most of them failing, and sticking with the ones that work. The newspaper and the broadcasting media and magazines did not become what they are overnight. It was decades and centuries of refinement and trying different things and staying with what works and discarding what didn’t. It would be silly to attach too much meaning to a snapshot.

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A pioneer Web site targeted at women, Cafeglobe.com, has attracted its reader base with not only fashion and beauty content, but also easy-to-understand political and financial information. The site enjoys as many as 350,000 unique users per month, according to figures from August 2005.

Behind one of the most popular sites in Japan is Yoko Aoki, Cafeglobe.com’s founder and CEO. Born in 1969, Yoko Aoki has been an editor for women’s lifestyle magazine “La Vie de 30ans” and automobile magazine “Navi.” Frustrated with the traditional business structure of the women’s magazine industry, Aoki looked to the Web, where she launched Cafeglobe.com with Kikuko Yano in 1999, intending it as a “medium truly useful for women.”

Aoki, who travels between Tokyo and London every month and a half, corresponded with Japan Media Review about the successful elements behind Cafeglobe.com and her vision for the future of the site.

Japan Media Review: What made you decide to launch Cafeglobe.com? What makes it different?

Yoko Aoki: Both Kikuko Yano, the president, and I were editors at women’s fashion magazines. We were creating different magazines, but we both felt that current women’s magazines cannot meet the needs of women, and we started planning a new medium by ourselves. In other words, I could say, we felt, “There aren’t any magazines I want to read.”

The number of women with careers has increased, and it has become more natural for them to be independent economically and mentally. However, publishers—who possess the most traditional corporate mentality—and their businessmen who make magazines were still fixated on the notion that women were only interested in fashion, beauty, cooking and travel, which no longer fit the realistic needs [of women]. We did not start with the idea of targeting women or differentiating from other [magazines]; I would say we noticed that as a user (reader) there was nothing I wanted to read.

JMR: How did you become interested in the Internet as a medium?

YA: First off, we wanted to have a medium to publish information, such as the women’s magazine we wanted to create. But, we knew too well by being editors of paper magazines that the initial investment is huge. Of course, once you work on a Web site, it will cost quite an amount, but when it comes to the paper, in addition to the cost of reporting and writing, enormous cost will be required, including that of papers, printing, and distributing throughout the country, and storing the leftovers, putting them into a shredder, creating accountd with related companies—which is quite difficult because they are a closed industry. It was around the time that the Internet became popular among the ordinary people, so we naturally thought of the possibility of Web publishing.

JMR: How many users regularly visit your site? Also, what’s their average age?

YA: As of August 2005, 7.3 million page views per month, and 350,000 unique users per month. As for the users’ average age, just under 30 is the largest audience. In a graph, it looks like Mt. Fuji with 30 at the peak.

JMR: Which section is the most popular on Cafeglobe.com?

YA: Ever since the beginning of Cafeglobe, “Gohan Nikki” (Meal Diary) by Hideko Kogure has been always popular. Also, “Nagatacho Kansatsu Nikki” (Journal of Nagatacho Observation) by Angel Atsumi and “Wakariyasui Okane no Shotai no Hanashi” (Easy-to-understand Identity of Money) by Noriko Hama are popular.

JMR: I can see quite a few sections on politics, economics, and social issues like environmental problems. Why did you decide to publish those sections?

YA: It is related to the earlier answer of mine. When women start earning income and managing it by themselves—even if they have partners—they need to know about society. To meet this need, we work hard on those pages. In my humble opinion, we aim at directing those who visit Cafeglobe.com for its fashion and beauty content toward political or social issues, and realize that women, too, should be interested in these subjects.

JMR: Where do you think women at present gain information necessary to them, as you mentioned?

YA: I think there is not much at this moment. Including myself, I think they tried their best to read the political section or finance sections of newspapers. And “AERA,” “Newsweek,” and “Shukan Bunshun,” I think. But those political sections in newspapers or weekly magazines for businessmen are mainly written on the premise that the readers know the basics, so honestly speaking, it is not easy to comprehend.

For example, it is not appealing to learn about Mr. [Seiji] Maehara, a new representative of Minshatou, without any knowledge of him,. But when you read an article in “Nagatacho Kansatsu Nikki” by Angel Atsumi [about his personality], it will help you be more interested in him. We, Cafeglobe, are aiming at building a bridge [between the users and the political sections in newspapers and magazines].

JMR: Which medium do you consider to be a competitor to your site? A magazine, newspaper or another Internet site?

YA: I do not really think of it as a competitor, but if I have to point one out, I would say it is a personal blog. While the amount of information on an individual blog is limited, there are valuable blogs, such as ones with access to information sources, or one that investigates a certain topic. So, I would say each individual blog is our competitor. As for existing magazines and newspapers, because their market share will not be bigger, I do not consider them competitors. Regarding other Web sites, I would rather welcome a competitor. No, I am not saying that we are the best; I mean that there is no site similar to us. This can be applied to magazines, but when several similar media emerge later, the pioneer and the followers will be acknowledged as a new media genre—just like when women’s magazines for 30-year olds appeared. So, I think if we have a company, more advertisers will approach us, and we will gain more potential users.

JMR: In what way do you create an interactive relationship with the readers? How do you promote the interaction?

YA: I cannot think of anything that we pay special attention to. I think it could apply to any Web site, but in a forum, some eccentric opinions or mean opinions tend to leave a strong impression, which we are a little bit concerned about. But we are blessed to have kind and nice users at our site and have not had many [discussion board] quarrels.

JMR: How do you manage your business on Cafeglobe.com? Have you ever considered making Cafeglobe.com a pay site?

YA: One-third of our income comes from advertising, another one-third is from site production (as a production company, we create and maintain other companies’ sites), and the other one-third is from merchandising. Basically, gaining profit all from advertising would be ideal, but the reality is that we have not reached there yet. I believe making the site a pay site is what we wish and what it should be. This is because as a medium depending on advertising fees, we cannot always convey the information that users need. Realistically speaking, however, it is impossible under the current circumstances. I would like to keep checking up on the industry’s trend.

JMR: Ever since its foundation in 1999, your site has been supported by many users. What’s the secret of your popularity?

YA: I think it is all because we have created the site with sincerity. Our editorial policy is that we write any article, even a small one, that will make [the users] feel grateful that they have accessed. The other secret, I believe, is that we show our faces as creators in the anonymous Internet environment.

JMR: What is the toughest thing you have encountered since the site’s foundation?

YA: For the first two years, we worked so hard to create the site that we did not take weekends off or sleep enough. The physical hardship was the hardest thing (laugh). Also, we lacked a common language between editors and writers who created the content and those who made the system and HTML coding, which produced some trouble. In addition—now that we do not have this problem any more—around 1999, the number of savvy Web designers was extremely low, and it was difficult.

JMR: What is the best thing about being the editor-in-chief of Cafeglobe.com?

YA: That definitely lies in not being bothered by an “oyaji jyoushi” (middle-aged male boss) who does not understand current women’s needs, like [I was] in a publishing company (laugh). While I was working there, I proposed an article on social issues for women or on environment, but whatever I proposed was turned down by [the boss] saying “women aren’t interested in those issues, are they?”

JMR: You stepped down as the editor-in-chief on Sept. 1 and became CEO. How are you planning to contribute to Cafeglobe.com in your new position?

YA: I will continue to contribute to the content development and the service improvement of Cafeglobe.com, both as a company executive and as a member of the editorial staff. Since the Web always requires something new, I would like to watch the overseas trends involving the Web and women, so that we could follow [the trend] as soon as possible.

JMR: What is Cafeglobe.com is planning for the future?

YA: We have just opened a new service, “Oshigoto no Chienowa” (Career Insight), in which users can exchange the situation job according to the job category and the wisdom of their work. So, we will develop further the career-related content. Moreover, although I cannot tell you in a concrete way, we are preparing for a new service involving a community that will be launched next year. The quality of the users at Cafeglobe.com is very high, so I believe by making a community more convenient and improved, this will become an invaluable space for women to gain vital information.

When Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took a deeply divided Liberal Democratic Party into the snap election, many believed it was political suicide. Koizumi staked his political life and his legacy on the poll. In any event, “lionheart” Koizumi’s brinkmanship paid off. The Sept. 11 poll delivered the ruling party a historic landslide victory. As Gerald Curtis, an expert in Japanese politics at Columbia University, commented shortly after the election: “This was not a victory of the LDP, this was a victory of Koizumi.”

Ofer Feldman, a professor at Doshisha University, credits much of Koizumi’s success to his astute (and sometimes forceful) handling of the media. He says that Koizumi is a new kind of politician for a new kind of Japanese political culture – more a leader in the Western style than the old consensus-building traditional Japanese politician. He is a leader who “has a dialogue with the people and the ability to influence them.”

Some commentators have spoken of a watershed in Japanese politics, yet Feldman is skeptical. He doesn’t think the LDP’s grassroots political machine has changed much; “pork-barrel politics will probably continue forever.” And he points out that the prime minster’s phenomenal success may be a double-edged sword for the party. Koizumi has shown himself to be a master of political theater. When the time comes to choose a new leader, he will be a tough act to follow.

Israeli-born Ofer Feldman is a Professor of Political Process in the Faculty of Policy Studies at Doshisha University. He is the author of “Talking Politics in Japan Today,” “The Japanese Political Personality” and “Politics and the News Media in Japan.”

JMR: Koizumi very successfully focused the election on one issue – postal-reform. Why couldn’t the Democratic Party broaden the debate?

Ofer Feldman: If there was effective journalism [in Japan], they would have forced the ruling party to put more issues on the agenda. The media here play according to rules dictated by politicians.

Koizumi was very clever. The electorate, generally speaking, thinks in a very simple way. If you give them two issues, it is too complicated for them. That was the mistake of the Democratic Party. Koizumi said that there is only one issue – postal reform. You give the people a simple sentence, one issue and you will win the election.

JMR: Could last month’s election be described as Japan’s first presidential style contest?

OF: It could. It was Koizumi against Okada. If you look at the posters and television commercials, you had not five different parties, but five different leaders.

JMR: What did Okada and the Democratic Party of Japan do wrong to lose so catastrophically?

OF: Okada was criticized even within his own party. He didn’t know how to use the media, or how to project his opinions as the opposition leader. He couldn’t compete with Koizumi. He gave the appearance of being [a] serious politician without a sense of humor.

He was not as charismatic as Koizumi and didn’t give the impression that he was the right person to lead Japan now. Maybe 10 or 15 years ago he could have succeeded on a local level, but he isn’t a national leader.

JMR: Is Koizumi a new kind of Japanese leader?

OF: Koizumi is the product of the “presidentialization” of the prime-ministership. In the 1990s there were structural changes within Japanese politics, and changes in political culture. The people’s attitude towards leadership changed. They became ready to accept goal-orientated leaders rather than old-fashioned consensus-building leaders.

They were looking for somebody who will stand in front of the press and say, “I will do it. I don’t care what everybody thinks.” This was exactly the situation that paved the way for Koizumi.

JMR: How much of Koizumi’s success was down to the way he used the media?

OF: Everyone is talking about how Koizumi manipulated the media using sound bites. He creates catch-phrase politics, one-phrase politics. He decides the content and length of the phrases himself. He decides when he is going to meet the media. He asks them for the questions they will ask in advance, he talks for 4-5 minutes and then he leaves.

If there was real media here, they would say, “You are not going to decide what you are going to tell us, and we are not going to give you the questions in advance.” I’ve spoken with political reporters, and they hate it. But this is how they make their living so they don’t want to criticize it. If you talk to the editors, they say that this is not the way that a leader is supposed to behave in democracy; in a democracy you are supposed to answer questions that reporters give you.

JMR: How unusual was the tactic of bringing in “assassins” from outside to stand against the postal rebels?

OF: It is not completely new. In the Upper House they are traditionally called “talento giin” (TV personality Diet members). But in this case they are not just celebrities. If you look at those who were mobilized by the LDP to run against the rebels, they are professionals; talented people not “tarento.”

It’s an excellent thing. Traditionally, politicians had to have a degree in law, now they are coming from various areas of life. Now you can have a debate in the Diet. Koizumi picked them the same way that he selected his ministers in the first administration – one by one, not by considering the strengths of the LDP factions. He decided who he wanted to work with. He broke the rules.

JMR: Why did the most famous assassin, Internet entrepreneur Horie Takafumi, lose?

OF: His opponent Shizuka Kamei was known in the electoral district. He started as a local politician and he has worked there for the last 30 years. He has his organization of supporters. He contributes to the community. They talk about three things in Japan: “Jiban” (political base) “Kanban” (signpost) and “Kaban” (bag). Kaban is money.

Kamei also has personality; he knows how to perform in front of political supporters and the TV cameras. One TV program followed Kamei for several days. He appeared lecturing in a remote community in Hiroshima, his electoral district. When one person in the audience complained about the way the Construction Ministry handled a certain problem near their home, Kamei immediately instructed his secretary to call a high-ranking official in the ministry. Kamei spoke to the Ministry in front of the cameras and asked them to solve the problem as soon as possible.

Horie can’t do that. You have to have contacts and, of course, the ability to perform. Horie has the money so he can play politics. He’s a bad example of someone who uses their money to entertain themselves by running in an election.

JMR: Has Japanese politics really changed at the local level?

OF: My students and I conducted research during the recent election campaign in various ways. When we went to candidates’ speeches, we heard the same old style of politics. We heard candidates promise: “I will do something for the community. Please trust me. I will help you to build bridges here, establish schools here.” Candidates, especially LDP candidates, spoke about how they can contribute to the community – and then also mentioned Koizumi’s reform, political style and vision.

One female LDP candidate we got on video lectured for about 10 to 20 minutes, mostly about the resemblance between her name “Kyoko” and the city “Kyoto.” At the end she insisted that she was going to shake hands with everyone who came to the meeting.

Pork-barrel politics will probably continue forever. This is the old style of electioneering. You vote for the candidate whose face you saw, whose hand you touched. She talked a little in general about politics, but there was one key word in her speech, and in that of all the other LDP candidates – “Koizumi.” All the candidates used his reputation and plans to get elected.

JMR: Koizumi is due to finish his tenure as prime minister next September. Will the media participate in the debate to choose his successor?

OF: The media are very timid; they never choose the prime minister in Japan. They can criticize the prime minister, but they can’t choose him. They see their role more as influencing public opinion after the decision.

Also, since the 1990s, due to various factors, including the change in the election law and Koizumi’s own actions, LDP factions haven’t played their traditional role in the selection of future leaders. They have lost power and just become “study groups” to discuss policy.

At the moment, there isn’t even one likely candidate. Go to Nagatacho and ask political reporters, “Who do you think will be the next prime minister” and they say: “We don’t know.” It is hard to predict who will take the lead after Koizumi, although several names appear in the media from time to time. This has never happened in the history of modern Japanese politics because everyone knew that sooner or later one of the LDP faction leaders would become prime minister.

JMR: Will the LDP look for another charismatic and media-friendly leader like Koizumi?

OF: Yes, but the question is, will they find one? And the answer is no, because Koizumi is unique. He came at a time when the people needed a person like him, who can stand before the public and media and promise reform. Of course, he achieves that partly by manipulating the media.

He is not a family man, he’s divorced. Look at it from a psychological viewpoint. He is talking to the public like they are his wife and children. He’s the first politician like that in Japan. The press calls him “henjin” (weirdo). He is the strange politician, unpredictable. Reporters and politicians are always looking for his next surprise move. That’s how he dominates the political stage so adeptly.

JMR: Are you optimistic for reform in Japan?

OF: Postal reform will definitely take place. As for other reform, that’s a good question. Koizumi says, “This is the beginning,” but in the last four years there was no reform. Even his reform of the highway authorities failed.

People were surprised by this election; they weren’t expecting the LDP to win by such a large margin. Even the LDP politicians were surprised. Until this election we could have talked about two main parties in Japan, but now we are talking again about one.

As long as Koizumi remains in power things will remain the same. Next September the LDP will probably decide to try and extend his tenure as party president. But Koizumi is full of surprises so perhaps he will just retire. An even bigger, more interesting surprise will be if he quits the LDP to establish his own party – but that’s all speculation.

As for the LDP, they got so many this time that in the next election they will probably lose seats. In order to mobilize the vote they will need a charismatic candidate, maybe even a woman – someone who can talk to the public the way Koizumi does. Do they have such a candidate? I doubt it. Things may change as soon as Koizumi quits.

Katsuji Ebisawa, a former chairman of NHK, resigned after embezzlement scandals involving its employees, although the nature of NHK has not changed much because “his henchmen still wield much influence in the newsroom,” according to Yasushi Kawasaki, a former political reporter at NHK and now a leading critic of the public broadcaster.

Like many leaders of other news organizations, Ebisawa used to report on major LDP factions. Kawasaki, however, said the disgraced NHK ex-chair was “not a political reporter, but a politician boosting his backroom influence.”

Akira Uozumi, a former reporter for Kyodo News and best-selling author, investigated NHK’s problems and also concluded, “NHK should not be considered to be a news organization” because of a symbiotic relationship with the LDP. Kawasaki agreed, though he said he had once worked for NHK, believing it was in fact a news organization.

Kawasaki was once a promising journalist at NHK, where he worked from 1959 to 1991. He covered the prime minister’s office as a top reporter and served as a bureau chief in Bonn, then West Germany. While covering Japanese politics, he very often posed hard questions to leaders. His style so unnerved some politicians, that on several occasions his worried-looking boss told him not to ask the Japanese officials anything at all. But Kawasaki ignored his boss’s plea because, he said, he was just doing what a journalist was supposed to do.

However, after his coverage of the faction of the late Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was pulled off the air because of pressure from the LDP, Kawasaki was forced out of a career track at the network. Kawasaki’s report claimed that, even though Tanaka was arrested on a charge of taking bribes from the Lockheed Corporation, his faction was still boosting its power, trying to exert political leverage over the outcome of the trial. In the end, Kawasaki was kicked out of the newsroom and transferred to the NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, where he was given no job, he said.

The public relations department at NHK insisted that although Kawasaki said he “was demoted, NHK places the right person in the right job in personnel transfer.”

His demotion was 30 years ago, and the scandals surrounding NHK have continued to affect its news practices, said Kawasaki, who has taught journalism at three universities and written several books.

Kawasaki agreed to discuss his history at NHK, the problems regarding the kisha club system, and the state of the Japanese media today.

JMR: How did you feel when you found you could no longer work in the newsroom?

YK: Never did I imagine that could happen to me. It was a bolt out of the blue. On the very first day at the NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, I was appalled to learn that there was no desk and no chair for me. I was given no job there. I had nothing to do.

I covered the prime minister’s office, and also became a bureau chief at NHK in Bonn, then West Germany. So, I was one of the top reporters among 800 staff members. I was doing the right thing. However, I was relegated to the office where there was no job, no desk and no chair. The demotion clearly sent me the message: I should quit. NHK flatly said that they “placed the right person in the right job.”

I had to go through a lot of hardships. I thought about leaving NHK so many times. But the reason I didn’t was an issue of my family. I had two children who were going to high school and university at that time. I wanted to support them. And also I was not confident that I could make ends meet by writing articles.

Seeing me depressed, a friend of mine handed me a book titled “Making News” by Martin Mayer. “Mayer’s argument in the book is exactly what you are saying,” he said. For example, Mayer argued that it is journalists, not authorities, who decide what is news, and that it is a public relations department that writes things as authorities want.

Then that friend came up with one idea: I myself could not write what I had to go through at NHK, however, I could translate the [book’s] same argument as mine. Then, I decided to follow his suggestion and start working on its translation with the help of another friend. Mayer’s book reassured me that I had done the right thing.

JMR: What made you start teaching journalism at universities?

YK: First of all, while I was at the institute, Japan Women’s University wanted me to teach one journalism class, just once a week. I translated Mayer’s book and got teaching experience at the university, which made it easy for me to teach at another school. Then, I was offered a full-time job from Otani Women’s University in Osaka after I retired NHK. Because I was also writing articles for a monthly magazine, one radio station in the city, MBS (Mainichi Broadcasting System), which read such articles, offered me a position as a commentator on politics and media for their evening program. I had been doing that for more than 10 years after NHK. After Otani Women’s University, I started teaching journalism at Sugiyama Women’s University in Nagoya.

JMR: You say in the book that reporters who cover a specific faction of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are likely to be loyal to that faction. Why do you think that happens?

YK: They come to recognize that listening to a boss of the faction can be of benefit to them rather than listening to ones in the newsroom. That is because some factions have the power to control the top of news organizations. Unfortunately, such reporters tend to rise to a position of the upper echelon. Even if a news organization likes some reporter who covers one faction, a kingmaker like the late former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka or some other influential politicians do not like the reporter, they could say to the organization, “Fire him!” Then, that reporter will become someone like me.

JMR: You also say in the book that one of the most serious problems in the media is the leaders in newsroom.

YK: That’s right. There are still some young people who come to work in journalism with a sense of mission. But many bosses undermine their willingness to work. Then young workers gradually come to be more aware of politics in the newsroom and try to curry favor with their bosses.

JMR: Many people criticize NHK for its symbiotic relationship with the LDP. They point out that its news programs do not get comments from those who are critical of the cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Neither does NHK let them appear on its programs.

YK: Absolutely. They have a kind of list of political analysts, showing this one is a “guy to beware of.”

[NHK rejected such criticism, saying "NHK invites people with a variety of backgrounds such as those who are critical of the administration and who are not to our news programs and Sunday talk show, and we let them express themselves freely."]

Japan is a horrid country. You also see many problems of plagiarism. The other day, a director at TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc.) plagiarized many passages from major newspapers and used them for his columns on the Web site of TBS. [To make matters worse, at first that director apparently asked a freelance writer to take the rap for him.] Why so [much] plagiarism? That is because we have more people without aspirations.

Recently, my friends who used to work at NHK came to my home and said, “I keenly felt that the root of the whole problem at NHK is that workers get too high a salary.” I agreed. NHK has flourished because of its success in broadcasting satellite. Naturally, its employees want to keep that level of income and keep their living standards. Employees’ salaries used to be much lower 20 to 30 years ago.

JMR: You talk about plagiarism, journalists with no aspirations and the decline of the mainstream media. How do you think these have affected our society?

YK: That results in the rise of fascism, I would say. These days more people in newsrooms feel that as long as they listen to their bosses, they are fine. Even if some employees are doing their job, saying to themselves, “This may be wrong,” they think they are fine because others are also doing it. Fewer and fewer people have the courage to say, “I believe this is wrong.” But more and more people do their job, currying favor with their bosses. So they are sending more similar news [which is not critical of authorities] to the Japanese public. And the public unknowingly gets used to it. I believe such news causes more people to lack critical thinking skills in society. I have to say that lays down the root of fascism. These people tend to think as long as TV programs are funny, that’s fine. [Recently more and more comedians appear on TV programs including talk shows and news programs. Some comedians, like Akio Ishii, are former newscasters.]

JMR: Then Japanese people find themselves surrounded by many problems in society don’t they?

YK: That’s exactly what we are seeing right now. When I was working in the NHK newsroom, there were some staff members who said to me, “This does not make news without good footage.” I always retorted, “News doesn’t mean only something with footage.” Apparently there are no such arguments in the newsroom. Speaking of something in politics that makes news now, their answer is Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Before Mr. Koizumi, Japanese prime ministers did not often come to television and talk. But Mr. Koizumi does almost every day. He makes just a few remarks and leaves. The media let him say only what he wants to. Then, just because the Japanese top leader says something, they use that footage. When they continue to do this, the image of the prime minister gets more powerful. Then, more politicians also try to take advantage of TV to say only what they want to. Most of what they are saying is propaganda.

JMR: That sounds like NHK viewers are buying their propaganda. As you know, ironically, more people depend on NHK news for their information.

YK: Certainly. Moreover, some politicians are less willing to talk to print media these days. Instead, they are more willing to talk to broadcast media. Some politicians give reporters some information but tell them that that is not for the record. But later they talk about it on TV. Suddenly, that is no longer off the record. I believe that the media themselves are blamed for creating such odd situations. And it is NHK that spearheaded the trend.

I think it is the broadcast media that destroy Japanese political systems and ruin a society.

While Livedoor and Fuji TV reached a compromise agreement in April, Horie has continued to stay in the limelight in part because of his provocative language when discussing Japan’s traditional media. He has said, for example, that Livedoor and online media are going to “kill” traditional media, and he has slammed TV and newspaper coverage as patronizing, preachy and manipulative.

Livedoor launched its own news service last year in an attempt to change the way the media interact with the public. While it hired staff writers with professional journalistic experience, last December it began to register people as “public journalists” after they passed a one-day training course. (For a review of Livedoor’s program, see JanJan’s coverage by a participant in the class.)

Currently, about 200 people have been accredited by Livedoor as public journalists, and 800 more are waiting to join the group. Once someone is designated a public journalist, he or she can file stories with the Livedoor editors on topics of their choosing, although the editors make the final decision about what goes on the site.

One of the people presiding over this grand experiment is Mitsuyasu Oda, a veteran journalist who has worked in both Western and Japanese newsrooms and has has had a career-long interest in the role of public journalism. (In February, he posted a story about a citizen-based blog that emerged out of earthquake-stricken Tokamachi, Niigata Prefecture.)

As one of the most experienced journalists in the Livedoor newsroom and someone who has experience teaching, Oda is charged with training the public journalists. He has also become a magnet for criticism of the Livedoor news service. Readers flooded his blog with so many critical remarks that Oda decided not to accept any more comments.

But there is no doubt that the Livedoor team has created a popular news site. Livedoor’s main news page draws between 500,000 and 1 million visitors per day, Oda says, with anywhere from 250,000 to 500,000 of those readers clicking on the news pages where PJ, or public journalism, stories appear.

Oda says the site gets a lot of messages every day, many of which criticize the public journalism stories. Yet, he believes this is an important experiment that will allow a wider range of views than traditional media do. It just needs room to grow, he says. JMR talked to Oda about public journalism, Horie and Livedoor’s place in Japan’s media landscape.

Q: Tell us about how the public journalism project got started and how you got involved in the process.

A: The project originally started in early 2004 with a goal of creating a newspaper with a projected subscriber base of 300,000. The project failed because Livedoor faced a number of barriers when it tried to enter the industry: Japan’s system of kisha clubs (exclusive government press clubs) was one, and its newspaper disruption system (strict price and distribution controls) was another. Livedoor was also planning to buy a newspaper company, but the plan did not work out. Separately, the idea of creating an Internet media service using public journalists came up last May.

I was involved in research projects on the development of public journalism in the United States and South Korea. I have also been teaching courses on mass media at such universities as Meiji, Waseda and Digital Hollywood. That’s how I got involved in the project.

Q: Why did you think the concept of public journalism would work in Japan?

A: In the U.S., “public journalism” implies criticism of existing media. Many people still believe that participation in journalistic activities should be limited to professional journalists, but historically speaking, journalism was originally opened to anyone.

One reason a system to enable open participation did not grow has more to do with a lack of capital rather than the quality of journalists. The development of the Internet has created an environment that enables ordinary people to participate in the mass media.

In the case of South Korea, public journalism, as seen in OhmyNews, grew out of opposition to the government and the existing media. South Korea didn’t lift media restrictions until 1987, and this spurred the growth of media there. The country experienced the Asian financial crisis and subsequent changes under the supervision of the International Monetary Fund in the late 1990s. During these changes, the media were often viewed as conspiring with the government.

The situation in Japan is different because Japan has a history in which its media grew as an opposition to (government) authorities in the postwar period. So we did not want to imitate what OhmyNews has done. Japan already has a popular Web site in Channel 2. It also has plenty of personal Web sites and blogs, and some are quite public in their endeavors.

Channel 2 has a large quantity of comments that touch upon public issues, but there are also private messages with many slanders and character assassinations. These comments are not very organized, and users cannot easily access the information they want. Yet I think this is a kind of Internet journalism with vast influence despite its many flaws.

Many personal Web sites and blogs are quite insightful and based on deep understanding of social phenomena. But they often don’t have exposure unless the operators are famous to start with. What Livedoor tries to do is to use its high level of public recognition to give a forum for comments of a public nature.

Q: Over the past half year, the public journalism page has been criticized rather harshly. In order to respond to the criticism and to separate your personal views from Livedoor’s, you started your personal blog this spring. But you were deluged with comments yourself and had to stop accepting any more.

A: It was quite unexpected. I guess the criticism Livedoor’s public journalism receives partly reflects criticism of President Horie. He has made rather careless comments such as, “The Internet will kill existing media.” Sometimes, I think his ideas on new liberalism are also coming under attack.

Secondly, some of the criticism is based on envy. Livedoor’s registered public journalists are mostly ordinary people who have jobs elsewhere. Some are doctors, architects or public servants. Others are students, housewives or retired people. They also vary greatly in age from the 20s to the 60s. These people suddenly become journalists and gain influence. Some comments are not criticism per se, but are more like envy.

Thirdly, part of the criticism comes from people working in traditional media who are afraid that something new will infringe upon their professional territory.

Q: Under the current system, basically anybody can become a public journalist and file stories once they take the one-day training course.

A: Out of 200 public journalists registered, about 20 are now actively filing stories.

Q: What kind of criteria do you have for selecting the stories you use?

A: Stories need to deal with issues that are public in nature, but other than that there isn’t much limitation. One of the reasons we started the project was to pick up stories that the existing media do not pick up. We are looking into stories that are close to our daily lives and that public journalists feel they must let people know about.

By setting limitations on what we can run and what we cannot run, we may bump into the danger of limiting freedom of expression. Among other criticism we receive, some say the public journalists do not have good writing styles. But the style the traditional media use has evolved based on their history of writing for limited space. I wonder if that should still be the standard.

Q: How about fact-checking?

A: Currently, we are focused more on daily experiences that don’t require a lot of fact-checking, but we recently filed a story by a public journalist who witnessed a subway operator leaving the driver’s seat and walking around the compartment. The story questioned the choice of leaving the driver’s seat, even if many subways nowadays operate on automatic mode. Livedoor’s editorial team did extra work checking on the Transport Ministry and other sources before running the story.

Q: You’ve been running a story written by a plaintiff in a lawsuit who claims that her father was killed rather than committing suicide, as the police say he did.
Why did you decided to run a series of stories written by a person involved in a lawsuit?

A: In this case, the writer is not an independent agent. But there may be a possibility that the story has not been picked up by the major media because the writer’s father was (a scout for) a major Japanese baseball club, and this involves the media’s interest in broadcasting games or reporting about them. Of course, there is also a possibility that she may lose the case, but this does not mean we cannot run the story. We should not exclude a powerless voice.

Looking back at the Minamata disease (one of the worst cases of massive pollution and resultant disease, which broke out in Japan in the 1950s and 1960s), the damage was widespread partly because the media did not actively report on it. There are many issues like that.

Livedoor runs stories that the mass media do not report but are of public interest.

Q: But, shouldn’t it be a story that should remain on her own Web site, or a story that is investigated by Livedoor’s’ own staff, instead of her writing about it herself?

A: In order to answer that question, we need to go back to the question of what is journalism after all. In a broad sense, the term refers to writers and their views, which function as watch dogs checking the authorities. Those who say a story filed by a party who is involved in a particular issue is not journalism are complaining about two things: one is that the views are not neutral; and the other is that they are not objective.

I personally think a story is valid even if the writer is not in a position to be independent as long as the issue is of public interest.

Q: Do you agree with Mr. Horie’s view on journalism?

A: He does not know much about journalism. Mr. Horie agreed that he will not infringe on Livedoor News and will ensure the independence of the editorial department, even if the issue at hand involves criticism of him.

I once filed a story criticizing him. He just laughed at it. Mr. Horie is frustrated with the existing media and is hoping that more diverse choices will emerge. I agree with him on that much. Beyond that point, Mr. Horie does not seem to have clear ideas of how to achieve that goal.

Q: What are your goals?

A: Right now, we have 800 people waiting to be trained. We are trying to get them trained as soon as possible. By increasing the number of public journalists, we are planning to improve the quality of our stories overall and to enhance the diversity of our coverage. When the number of public journalists reaches 10,000, we should be able to function better and have more influence.

For much of Japan’s postwar history, lawmakers have done their politicking behind closed doors and have rarely had to emerge from their smoke-filled rooms to speak to the media. “Japan doesn’t have a tradition of viewing eloquence as a virtue,” Feldman notes. “Basically there was no need to talk to be selected as a minister, or even the prime minister. Rather than preferring a strong, visible, articulate leader, the Japanese concept of leadership values the virtues of a behind-the-scenes consensus builder.”

But by the early 1990s that had changed. The collapse of nearly 40 years of Liberal Democratic Party hegemony meant that politicians suddenly found they had to communicate with the public to get elected. Though the LDP quickly regained power, the tone of political coverage was permanently altered. Japan’s charismatic current Prime Minster, Junichiro Koizumi, is particularly known for his media savvy.

Although political coverage has become more varied and interesting, it has not led to more straight talk from politicians. While the media are now making politicians talk, most have retained their wariness of committing themselves, argues Feldman. In effect, the media are asking more questions, but politicians are replying with equivocation and obfuscation.

So how does anyone untangle the dense web of vagueness and miscommunication emanating from the Japanese Diet? Are the Japanese media helping the public understand and engage with Japanese politics –- or is coverage just exacerbating the public’s alienation? In trying to answer these questions Feldman looks for a path through the maze of Japanese political jargon and metaphor -– explaining such enigmatic terms as “portable shrine” (the office of the prime minister) and the epithet of one unfortunate leader, “cold pizza.”

As well as examining the complex and incestuous relationship between politicians and reporters, Feldman argues that the shift to an LDP-led coalition government and an influx of younger, less-disciplined politicians have fundamentally altered the relationship between the media and Japanese lawmakers.

Ofer Feldman is a professor of political psychology at Doshisha University in Kyoto. “Talking Politics in Japan” is published by Sussex Academic Press. This is an edited transcript of a series of interviews conducted by e-mail.

Japan Media Review: You have written, “Japan does not have a tradition of viewing eloquence as a virtue.” How then do politicians communicate their ideas?

Ofer Feldman: Politics is talk — you can’t have politics without discussion — but you have to distinguish between public and private talk. Former Japanese prime ministers didn’t speak in public; they didn’t have to.

Up until Koizumi, while politicians needed some initiative and ability to talk in order to win elections, the situation was much more structured and stable once they had entered the world of politics. As with most Japanese institutions, promotion was based upon seniority more than ability. Very few politicians who had not made it to a fifth term in the Diet could expect to sit in the Cabinet.

For example, Zenko Suzuki was a very minor prime minister. In a television interview he likened himself to an orchestra conductor whose role is to achieve harmony among the players of his administration (rather than making public statements on policies and politics). This characteristic was the main, perhaps even the sole, criterion for his selection as prime minister.

Masayoshi Ohira, who was elected in 1970, was always mumbling. They called him the “mm … mm … mm …” prime minister because he couldn’t talk.

JMR: Have there been politicians who refused to keep quiet?

Feldman: Very few. But Yoshiro Mori (prime minister from 2000-2001) was an example of a politician who talks too much. He made a lot of gaffes. In the late 1960s he said that Osaka (Japan’s second city) was like a garbage can.

In June 2000, Prime Minister Mori put his foot in his mouth by saying he hoped that voters who were still undecided would not participate in the upcoming general election: “It would be okay if they remain uninterested in the election and stay asleep. Unfortunately, that’s not how it will go.” Mori’s remarks were widely interpreted as meaning that the prime minister was hoping for low voter turnout.

Another contemporary example of course is Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo. In December 2002, Ishihara claimed in a Shukan Josei magazine interview that the worst side effect of civilization is the proliferation of “old hags” (“baba”). He explained that “it’s meaningless for women to live after they lose their ability to reproduce.”

Traditionally you didn’t need to talk. But if you talked too much, you caused yourself a lot of trouble.

JMR: Isn’t present Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi known for his skill in dealing with the media?

Feldman: Since he entered office, Koizumi has established new standards for dealings with the news media. His attitudes to political reporters have affected their routine newsgathering methods and led journalists to adopt new practices in their coverage of the national leader.

When Koizumi became prime minister he immediately informed reporters that he would “not talk to the press while walking” either in the prime minister’s official residence or in the Diet corridors. Instead, Koizumi agreed to appear daily in front of reporters to briefly answer their questions about important issues of the day.

Koizumi has completely replaced the traditional spontaneous news-gathering style with interactions in which reporters must pool precise questions and submit them in advance. Now it is easier to keep the press focused on a specific set of issues, and he is more likely to leave himself maneuvering room while limiting the danger of being pulled into uncharted waters.

This type of media strategy has let Koizumi talk “directly” to TV watchers while appearing to be knowledgeable, well-informed and in control of political events. From the moment of his inauguration, Koizumi strongly emphasized dialogue with the public.

Suddenly here is somebody who is standing in front of the public and talking – and not only verbally but with gestures, his hairstyle, his smile, the way he walks and waves to the public.

JMR: But hasn’t Koizumi often been accused of equivocation?

Feldman: Basically, Koizumi does not answer any question that he is asked in the Diet. For example, he was asked when he would go and visit the Yasukuni Shrine (Japan’s highly controversial memorial to its war dead). He said, “When the time arrives.” This is the politics of equivocation.

It is not the less you talk the safer you are, it is the more you equivocate the better politician you are.

JMR: Have the media changed the way they cover politics too?

Feldman: TV coverage of politics in particular has changed a lot since the LDP’s almost 40 years of unbroken rule ended in 1993. There are more and more programs which give politicians a chance to talk on television. One is Takeshi Kitano’s program on Monday evening, “TV Tackle.” He invites not only veteran politicians and former Diet members, but also young politicians too — from both the ruling coalition and the opposition parties. It’s partly entertainment but partly a very informative program that deals with important issues that are on the political agenda.

Another factor was Hiroshi Kume. He was the anchor for Asahi Television’s “News Station.” He made television a major political tool. He didn’t just read the news; he did something like Walter Cronkite did in the United States. He put a lot of emotion, a lot of criticism, a lot of cynicism in the way he talked about society and politics. He spurred more political interest among the public.

JMR: What happened to have such an effect on media coverage?

Feldman: The political game before 1993 was that there were two political camps –- there was the LDP and there was the socialist party. Then the LDP lost an election for the first time in 40 years. After 1993, the rules of this game broke down. The LDP was then replaced by coalition rule.

The prime minister at the time, Morihiro Hosokawa, suddenly changed a lot of things, including politics behind closed doors. He said, let’s talk politics in front of the people, in front of the cameras. Communication between politicians and the public started from there.

JMR: What about Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK? Recently it was accused of altering a program after pressure from the LDP.

Feldman: The scandal was not an isolated event. NHK is supposed to be a public broadcaster with no relationship to politics. What happens is that, in order to get their budget passed in parliament, they are going day in, day out to leading members of the LDP to tell them what they are going to air. Sometimes to the extent that they are presenting politicians with the anchorman’s script. This is unacceptable in a democracy.

The point was the timing. The Asahi Shimbun, in order to boost sales, just waited for an opportunity to bash NHK on something their reporters face basically every day.

JMR: How about print media? Have they changed their style of coverage since 1993?

Feldman: From my viewpoint, it is interesting that Asahi wrote the story because Asahi accepts the same pressure every day when they interact with sources of information. Because of the close relationship between reporters and the sources of information, the reporters are advised about what to write. But in many cases they are not told, “Write this and this.” The source of information just says, “I am expecting fair coverage.”

There is a very close relationship between reporters and politicians. Politicians give a certain type of information to reporters, and they expect them to publish this information. They also give them other kinds of information, but they limit it by off-the-record and other means and prohibit reporters from publishing it.

There are official press conferences in Japan. But the information is very limited, only to the official side of the government or organization. Right after the press conference the source of information will leave with the reporters to his private office and give them the real information.

JMR: Younger politicians seem to be interviewed in the media more often now, not just the party big-wigs. Does that mean that political reporters have freer access to information?

Feldman: Put it this way, reporters gather more information now, but they do not publish it. You can hear more of the information on TV than in newspapers.

To access this type of information reporters need to understand politics in Japan –- real politics, not gossip politics. They only need to be in contact with, say, 10 particular Diet members. But what they cannot give is flavor to this political information, information about the real mood among the young Diet members.

From the beginning of the 2000s, you see people on TV political programs who have only been elected once or twice. They have no official position; they come on the program to express the opinions that exist in their constituencies.

When you are live on television you can say whatever you want. But when you are interviewed by a reporter, after that, he or she selects what will appear in the newspaper.

JMR: Why have younger politicians started talking to the media?

Feldman: During the period that the LDP held power, from the 1950s to the 1990s, there was a seniority system. People were promoted on the basis of the time they were elected to the Diet.

Also, during the time the LDP had power, the faction bosses controlled the behavior of the people belonging to the factions through money. If somebody said good things they got money, if they said bad things, no money.

Because of the electoral reforms in the 1990s there are now more regulations about the money that the faction bosses can gather and distribute to members. Eventually the bosses lost power … nobody wants to be a yes-man because the faction doesn’t have any power.

What happened was that young Diet members — who had traditionally been afraid of their bosses — started to talk. Young Diet members are now very talkative, very provocative. They speak against Koizumi, against the faction bosses –- something that never happened before the 1990s.

JMR: You mention political metaphors in your book. Are they a tool the media can use to bring the workings of Japanese politics into the open?

Feldman: Metaphors help people take ideas from one area and use them to understand politics. Take “mikoshi” — the portable shrines that Japanese people carry on their shoulders during festivals. This is the way people refer to the prime minister –- he needs to be “carried about” by fixers and others who have to support his administration like the portable shrines carried on long poles during festivals.

It is a kind of shorthand. When you use the term “mikoshi,” people immediately have the image of the prime minister being carried around.

Political roles and issues are better explained using subjects familiar to the audience. There are a large number of metaphors used in Japanese politics, including a “security guard” or “bodyguard” role played by faction members and the “heckling shogun” role played by noisy politicians.

Metaphorically, prime ministers were labeled by terms that illustrated either their personality or leadership style. Eisaku Sato was the “the waiting politician” and “quick ears Eisaku’’; Kakuei Tanaka was a “computerized bulldozer”; Yasuhiro Nakasone was a “weathervane”; and Keizo Obuchi was termed an “ordinary man” and “cold pizza.”

The topic of metaphors is extremely interesting and important in the context of political behavior, especially in Japan, because many people feel that the political process and policymaking are complicated and difficult to understand.

Terasawa has launched a court case against the Japanese government and the kisha club system. He argues that cozy collaboration between journalists and press clubs promotes lazy journalism, protects vested interests and obstructs the work of freelancers like him.

Terasawa is one of Japan’s best known investigative journalists thanks to his dogged exposés of police corruption, and he regularly reports on trials. In April 2003, when he tried to cover a police corruption trial in Sapporo city, he was refused a seat in court and even a transcript of the verdict, purely on the grounds that he wasn’t a press club member. In July of this year, for the same reason he was again refused a seat in court at a Tokyo trial involving the well-known Takefuji loan company. Terasawa, who wrote articles on Takefuji’s alleged unscrupulous business practices, recently won a defamation case against the chairman of the company over Web postings on the Takefuji site that claimed Terasawa used false information in his reports.

The reporter and his team of lawyers began a court case against the Japanese government on Oct. 12. They argue that by discriminating against non-press club members and denying them information, the government is in violation of the constitution, which should guarantee press freedom and equal treatment for all. The first hearing in what is likely to be a lengthy legal process will take place on Dec. 15.

This is Terasawa’s second attack on the press club system; a similar case he began in 1999 was the first brought by a Japanese journalist. That case went all the way to the Japanese Supreme Court before being turned down last year. Nevertheless, Terasawa believes the fact that the case reached the Supreme Court is a sign the judiciary is taking the issue seriously.

Terasawa has worked as a freelance journalist for 15 years. He has harsh words for his colleagues at large newspapers and TV stations who, he says, “sit in their allocated spaces waiting to be brought a press release to rewrite.” He notes the kisha club system itself is rarely mentioned by the mainstream media, a taboo subject for journalists more worried about protecting their own information cartel than rocking the boat.

The Japanese Newspaper Publisher & Editors Association (NSK) is a staunch defender of the system, arguing in their Kisha Club Guidelines: “Japan’s media industry has a history of applying pressure to public institutions reluctant to disclose information by banding together in the form of the kisha club. The kisha club is an institution and system fostered by Japan’s media industry for over a century in pursuit of freedom of speech and freedom of press.”

International press freedom watchdog, Reporters Without Borders, is unimpressed with the system, commenting in its 2004 annual report: “Despite criticism from foreign correspondents, freelance journalists and press freedom organizations, the government and media showed no sign of changing any aspect of this archaic system.”

Terasawa is still hopeful of eventual success. The Internet, he says, has made it much easier for the public to get information directly and unmediated by the partnership between kisha clubs and journalists. The role of many of Japan’s thousands of kisha clubs is already being undermined.

As for himself, he just wants to have access to the information he needs to do his job as a freelance journalist. This is his second attempt to challenge the kisha club system. “We will keep going to court, no matter how many times we have to do it,” he says.

Japan Media Review interviewed Terasawa in Tokyo and by e-mail. The following is an edited transcript.

Japan Media Review: After losing your previous case, do you think you have a better chance this time?

Yu Terasawa: It took two years for the Supreme Court to consider our previous case. The Supreme Court only deliberates on cases involving the constitution. If they thought that it was clearly not an infringement of the constitution, they would have rejected it quickly. I think the Supreme Court probably had some doubts about letting the system continue the way it is at the moment.

JMR: Do you think you will win eventually?

Terasawa: It’s only the first stage of the court case, but I think it’s obvious that there is something wrong with kisha club members being able to reserve seats in court and get verdict transcripts while freelancers like me, weekly magazine writers and foreign correspondents cannot. Eventually we will win. Until then, we will keep going.

JMR: You are actually fighting a court case against the court system itself. Is that especially difficult?

Terasawa: We are asking the court system to acknowledge its own mistakes, so yes, that is difficult. But when you look at it from the point of view of common sense, they have no choice but to acknowledge the mistake.

It is a question of face for the officials. Even if the court doesn’t award me damages in their verdict, they could still say it is a problem that seats and text copies of the verdict aren’t provided for everyone. That way they can preserve their pride and save face at the same time.

JMR: You have always worked as a freelancer. How are freelancers viewed in Japan by the public and mainstream media?

Terasawa: They are viewed in a completely different way than in the West. When it comes down to it, any person who isn’t a member of an organization of some sort is not a respectable person. Maybe it has changed a little recently, but that way of thinking has been around for a long time.

It’s not just the world of journalism. For example, if someone asked you what you did for a living and you say you are a freelance journalist, writer, manga artist or designer, it’s almost the same thing as saying you are unemployed.

JMR: In most areas of employment in Japan, the “job for life” system has gone; many young people are following more flexible career paths. Is the same thing happening in the media? Are there more freelancers now?

Terasawa: I don’t think the number of freelance journalists is going up, in particular. It’s probably going down. The media are lagging behind the rest of society. The main reason is that newspapers are still centered on articles that come from “announcements.” Often, journalists don’t do their own research.

The “announcements” are not official; they are “leaks.” In the evening after a briefing or press conference, a journalist will meet with the PR representative or police officer and get the “behind-the-scenes” announcement, and attribute it to an “unnamed source.” The journalists haven’t checked it out themselves. The police representative, government official or company head has anonymously asked the journalist to write it.

JMR: Is it easy to become a freelance journalist?

Terasawa: It is very difficult for young people who want to be investigat
ive journalists, because there is no one to teach them. I have been doing this job for 15 years now, but I had to teach myself.

By and large, sending articles on spec isn’t welcomed. For the most part, publishers request articles and place them in the magazine. Also, there are virtually no awards that beginner nonfiction writers can apply for. I think that’s why there are pretty much no opportunities for beginner investigative reporters to publish their articles in magazines, etc.

JMR: Are there unions for freelancers?

Terasawa: No organization that stands out. Recently, I have thought that a union that could represent hundreds of writers is probably necessary.

JMR: Have you ever wanted or tried to join a kisha club?

Terasawa: I’ve never wanted to join a kisha club, but at the time of our first court case we were refused a copy of the summary of the verdict because were weren’t part of the kisha club. Then I thought, OK, it would be a good idea to try and join this club to get the information … but I was refused. I was told that “journalists who aren’t from newspapers or TV can’t join the kisha club.”

I’ve never thought I should join a kisha club and simply be passed sheets of paper from this police force, government office or news wire … then just collate it a little, summarize it and write my story to finish. I have never once thought that I wanted to do that kind of work. I’m not interested.

JMR: Are there kisha club members who are critical of the system, perhaps who would rather go out and do their own newsgathering?

Terasawa: I don’t think there are any journalists like that; they wouldn’t become journalists in the first place. Perhaps they think like that when they leave university, but they soon enter the kisha clubs. They know that if they just take up their allocated space, people will bring them the press releases to rewrite. They think that that is a journalist’s job — and the money is good and it is easy.

JMR: Do you think newspaper readers are aware of how the kisha club system works?

Terasawa: They don’t know about the kisha club system. It’s the most taboo topic for newspaper journalists. The most important thing for the newspapers is to make it look to the readers like they have been out working as hard as they can to gather information from morning till night before writing their article. If their readers knew that they had just picked up a piece of paper from the police summarizing some incident, no one would buy newspapers.

JMR: How long do you think the kisha club system can continue as it is?

Terasawa: The spread of the Internet is having an effect. Industry and government officials have their own Web sites, all the press releases are posted there. Up to now there was no Internet, so when officials wanted to pass information to the public they had to do it through the newspapers and TV. People who want to can see the original, detailed press release on those Web sites. To that extent the role of the kisha clubs is slowly disappearing.

The press clubs are only really strong in places like the Imperial Household Agency and the police where information can’t circulate freely. The reason that the Imperial Household Agency and police kisha clubs are strong is not so much that the kisha clubs themselves are strong, but that the Imperial Household Agency and police give limited information only to the kisha clubs. I think that is because they would like to control the flow of information.

In short, the most important thing for the Imperial Household Agency and police is to support their organizations; you could say that they use the kisha clubs for that purpose and only disseminate information that suits them.

JMR: Has the EU’s success in getting access for foreign journalists helped Japanese freelancers?

Terasawa: There wasn’t any effect. The Japanese government had to show Europe and America that Japan is an open country with the same standards. Asian media and we freelancers are still being discriminated against.

I think it is definitely easier for foreign correspondents from Europe and America to gather news in Japan than it is for we Japanese freelancers.

JMR: Are there any advantages to being a freelancer?

Terasawa: There are very few completely freelance journalists. Most people have contracts of one sort or another with magazines which gives them enough money to live. Often that makes it difficult for them to find the time to write what they really want. There are very few people like me who would write for anyone.

The Internet allows sexual minority groups to build a sense of community and identity. There are numerous Web sites for gays and lesbians as well as “transgendered” individuals “who live between and beyond officially endorsed gender categories,” says McLelland. By utilizing the Internet, groups can form identities outside the bounds of restrictive and reductive media stereotypes.

Furthermore, the Internet has also affected the sex lives of sexual minorities in Japan. Electronic cruising has replaced bar-hopping for many. The Internet has made it much easier for gays, lesbians and transgenders, particularly in rural areas, to find partners. “For many non-heterosexual individuals, as for many heterosexuals, the Internet has had a significant impact on the ways in which sexual activities are negotiated and organized,” McLelland says. “This is particularly the case in Japan, which is one of the world’s most wired nations.”

McLelland is an Australian Research Council postdoctoral fellow at the University of Queensland‘s Centre for Critical & Cultural Studies. He has written extensively on the intersections between gender, sexuality and new technologies in Japan. He was co-editor of the collection “Japanese Cybercultures” (Routledge, 2003), and has recently completed a new monograph, “Queer Japan from the Pacific War to the Internet Age,” which will be published in April 2005.

For the academic studying Japan’s sexual minority communities, the Internet is an invaluable tool for research. As McLelland has written, “The Net offers a window onto the world of Japan’s sexual minorities, providing one important means of access to a large number of individuals, groups and communities.”

This is an edited transcript of a series of interviews conducted by e-mail.

Japan Media Review: Japan was relatively slow to take advantage of the Internet, but isn’t it true that queer groups were some of the first people to make use of the Internet in Japan?

Mark McLelland: Queer groups were certainly among the first to take advantage of the networking possibilities offered by CMC (computer-mediated communication), even before the World Wide Web. For instance, GayNet Japan first started up on the old pasokon-nettowaku (personal-computer network) in 1988 and it’s now the oldest continuous gay site on the Net. EON (from Chavelier D’Eon, a cross-dressing French nobleman) was another bulletin-board system site set up around 1990 and was a forum for a range of male-to-female transgender individuals to swap information on everything from new developments in hormone therapy to the opening of a new club or bar.

JMR: How could queer groups use the Internet so effectively, so quickly?

McLelland: Queer community groups already had a great deal of experience of getting their views across in conventional print media; moving onto the Internet was just a natural step.

Japan’s first homophile magazine circulated among subscribers was Adonis and dates back to 1952, about the same time as ONE, the U.S. equivalent, started up. Homosexual men in Japan were among the first in the postwar era to develop this kind of newsletter medium (known in Japanese as minikomi or mini as opposed to mass communication). Also begun in the early 1950s was the Theatre Review, a mimeographed newsletter ostensibly about cross-dressing in the theatre but really a front for a society of male-to-female transvestites who used the magazine to talk about their cross-dressing interests.

There were of course many other gay magazines that followed, including the first commercial magazine, Barazoku, in 1971. Commercial magazines for cross-dressers too started in the early 1980s. Queen was the first — associated with the Elizabeth chain of cross-dressing clubs that opened in 1979. There’s a whole range of lesbian minikomi, too, dating back to the early 1970s, although commercial lesbian publications have been less successful.

JMR: So why did queer media move to the Internet?

McLelland: The main advantage was ease of access. Many of the magazines were only ever circulated among small groups of people. Finding out about them was often by chance and they tended to fold after only a few issues due to lack of funds or declining interest. The commercial magazines, such as gay men’s Barazoku (1971-2003), were available in stores or by mail order but only ever had sales of around 40,000 (although readership was much more as they were frequently recycled via secondhand stores, swapped among friends, and left lying around on the counters of gay bars).

Remember that in Japan many gay men are married and/or live with their parents or live in tiny one-room apartments, so storing magazines was always a problem. With the Internet, gay sites can be accessed easily and then deleted from the screen. Wide-ranging information about different gay scenes which would have been spread across different types of publication can now be accessed on the one screen via hyperlinks.

Also, the magazines’ personals used to be a major draw, offering a means for gay men, lesbians and transgenders to seek out friends and partners — particularly in rural areas. It could take months to get replies to ads in the old-style print media, but online responses are often instantaneous, so the Internet offers a real-time space for the development of relationships. It’s no surprise that after over 30 years of publication Barazoku, Japan’s first commercial gay magazine, finally folded last year — I think largely due to encroachment from the Internet.

JMR: Who views the Web sites? Are they accessible to straight Internet users too?

McLelland: Gay Web sites advertise themselves as such and ask straight browsers who may have just happened on the site to move on elsewhere. Most lesbian Web sites ask that men (even gay men) do not enter.

Some gay Web sites that help gay men make assignations in public places (so-called “cruising” sites) have a level of protection: Before one is allowed into the site one must register by passing a “gay check” — that is, answering a multiple choice test of one’s gay knowledge, from popular underwear brands among gay men, to the meaning of gay slang. This adds a level of protection to the men using the sites.

JMR: You have written that the Internet gives queer communities more freedom to define their own identities?

McLelland: Absolutely; I mentioned that there have always been minikomi in the queer world, but their range and readership was limited. The Internet offers the potential to link between like-minded people and groups and for these groups to take on the traditional power holders (the medical establishment, local government, etc.). The Internet has made these voices much more strident and more difficult for the authori
ties to overlook or marginalize.

JMR: Do queer communities portray themselves on the Internet any differently from how they are portrayed in the media?

McLelland: The media deal in stereotypes — gay men tend to be all represented as sissies and lesbians as butch. Where transgender is concerned there is an emphasis on male-to-female so that female-to-male get lost or marginalized. Of course, there is as much variety between queer people as between straight so the advantage of the Internet is that it shows this variety and makes it difficult for these stereotypes to be sustained.

JMR: How in practice then are sexual minorities using the Internet to challenge traditional power-holders?

McLelland: We all know that the Japanese state is very paternalistic and that authority figures such as politicians, doctors, teachers, etc., are used to bossing people around and speaking for them. We saw this in debates over legalizing the pill. Rather than listening to what women’s groups said women needed or wanted, male politicians listened to male doctors, and women’s voices were overridden or just excluded. The same has historically been true for disabled people. Facilities for the disabled in public spaces such as train stations and shopping malls are appalling in Japan. If you are disabled you are meant to stay shut away at home, not agitate for the reclamation of public space. Sexual minorities, too, have been tolerated to the extent that they don’t “come out” and make public scenes. The Internet has enabled people of similar dispositions, or those who face similar disadvantages, to come together online with ease and in comparative safety.

In the case of transgender people, the medical officials have always been very strict that they won’t aid people who work in the sex or entertainment world (historically, about the only place transgender people have been able to work) — so, in order to get access to treatment or find out about new treatments, transgender people have been organizing online, publicizing the names of sympathetic doctors, directing people to pharmacies that will sell hormones no questions asked, as well as detailing overseas institutions where gender reassignment procedures are less regulated than in Japan.

When politicians — (Shinataro) Ishihara (the right-wing governor of Tokyo), for example — make uninformed or homophobic remarks, it is easy to organize online petitions or to launch e-mail protest campaigns against, say, his office to show that he cannot speak for others with impunity. I think that ease of communication via the Internet has made many authority figures pause before they act in the same old paternalistic manner for fear of provoking some kind of organized protest that might shame them.

JMR: Has the way in which queer communities use the Internet changed as the Internet has become more commercialized?

McLelland: Yes, very much so. I’ve written extensively about the “newhalf” Net — that is, how male-to-female transgender entertainers and sex workers are using the Internet to publicize themselves and their services. All newhalf clubs and cabarets have their own Web sites and provide information about newhalf staff and the specialities they provide. Independent newhalf, too, advertise as companions and masseuses in a very direct manner (and even have i-mode readable sites). Japan’s nebulous prostitution laws and non-interventionist stance of the police mean that the advertising of sexual services is pretty common on the Japanese Net.

JMR: Do you think the Internet can bring about a real change in the position of sexual minorities in Japan?

McLelland: The Internet does also enable some interaction between groups, say, between gay organizations and members of the various men’s groups that are springing up all over the place and which are dedicated to thinking through problems connected with Japanese masculinity, such as the work ethic and its deleterious effect on family and personal life.

But let’s not get utopian about the Internet — the media corporations remain immensely strong. They sell their message to millions of people nationwide (and worldwide): They have tremendous power to influence how the general public feels about certain minorities.

The Internet is not a broadcast medium, in that its reach is not “broad” — very few straight people, for instance, are reading Japanese gay Web sites. The impact of these sites is not so much upon the general population but upon the minority communities themselves — giving them a sense of commonality, strength and power.

“I am one of those people who (doesn’t) belong to that system, and I actually feel comfortable as well as freer not belonging to the system because there are always sorts of things that only I can write,” she says of her access to Japan’s royals. Kudo has also accomplished what few in Japan could hope for — she has worked to expand the traditionally domestic scope of Japanese news and defies the restrictions of the reporter’s clubs. She has also fought gender inequalities within the industry.

With a degree in law from the University of Tokyo and a master’s degree in economics from the London School of Economics, Kudo began working in 1992 as an anchor for TV Asahi in Japan. Since then she has appeared as a newscaster on NHK, BBC and Nihon TV. She now writes articles and frequently appears on television as a commentator for current affairs, as well as in regard to the Imperial Palace. She has also written a book, “The Requiem for Kamikaze,” that was published in Japan in 2001.

In the following edited interview (conducted in English), Kudo asserts there are specific moments throughout the history of journalism in Japan which have lead to a public distrust of the government and the traditional media.

Japan Media Review: What is your opinion on how the media (in Japan) handles covering the Imperial family?

Yukie Kudo: We do have what is called the reporters system in Japan. That means you have to be a member of the reporters club of the Imperial household, and that means you are somewhat of an insider and you can’t actually write or say anything against them if you want to keep writing. That’s the reason why there are not many press conferences with the prince and princess or emperor and empress, and also, even if the press conference is being run, the questions have to be turned in two or three weeks in advance of the press conference, and you are not allowed to ask any questions outside of that. So the reporters press club really symbolizes, in a way, the Japanese system of the media. The information is coming from the ministries and the flow of information is rather one-sided, and you are not able to write anything critical or anything political.

I think that the press coverage of Masako is rather distorted. Many articles are wrong, or are not well-written, or they present a completely different image of the matter. I think that the reason being, if you are a journalist you want to be close to her, but even if you are close to her, you are not very close to the truth. Because I talk to people about the princess quite often, I can see the gap between the reality and the news reporting.

JMR: Do you see a change in that system happening any time soon?

Kudo: There are a lot of criticisms about this system because people know that it’s really hindering the competency of journalism that we can actually have. It’s really a convenient system for those people who are incompetent reporters. For example, let’s say you are a really young incompetent reporter who doesn’t know what to do. When you are a member of a reporters club, you are right there and you may even be manipulated. So there are criticisms, but there are people who actually enjoy or benefit from the system. If you have 200 reporters, and you ask them (if they) like the press club, you might actually get a mixed answer coming from those reporters who are lazy, so to speak.

In turn, there is not a term like investigative reporting. For instance, in the U.S. there was the Watergate scandal that really depended on strong investigative journalism. Something like that would be unthinkable in Japan.

JMR: As someone who is both close to the Imperial family and as a journalist, are you personally doing anything to suggest these changes, or do you still see benefits to the reporters club?

Kudo: I have written many articles to suggest that the mass media system in Japan is not really a good system to have. I’m writing articles about my views on the consumers of the information. The general public is missing a lot, I think, in Japan, not having a competent system. If you turn to public television or a particular news channel, it’s the same thing, because they’re reporting from the same source. They’re using the same information in the totally same way and that means there is not diversity and not a critical investigation, a truly journalistic reporting for the general public, which is really the basic principle of how journalism should be. So in order to educate the general public, I think there is a strong need to change that system so that the actual true information goes to the general public, not the manipulated information coming from the ministries or the government.

But I think there is an interesting phenomenon with the Internet. I think the tendency for the reporters club system to be broken may (come) naturally, because many people now go to the Internet, and many people can go to the Pentagon for information. Now the information is directly from the Pentagon. I think there is a tendency for the traditional Japanese journalistic system to be affected because of the new information being supplied to the general public.

JMR: I think what you described about the Japanese journalistic world doesn’t even sound like journalism from an American perspective. I wonder, what does journalism mean to Japanese people? What do people expect?

Kudo: The term journalism or journalistic is rather a new concept in Japan. I think for a long time, even in this modern age, people thought of reporters as the pigeon who carries the message, so to speak, carrying information about the world. I think Japanese people are not really expecting them to have particular intelligence as well as the decency to monitor information that is supplied by the government or the ministries. But I think that people are changing.

There was a cult called Aum which came out at the beginning of the 1990s and it was a big shock in 1995 when they put sarin gas in the subways in Tokyo. When the Aum coverage actually began, it was actually beyond the reporters club. They failed to catch what they were doing and if they were making sarin gas or not. All of them really failed because they were speaking to the ministry and the police and not really covering the Aum. So those people actually went outside of the reporters club to cover the sarin factories of the Aum cult in Mt. Fuji, at the risk of their lives. Because of these special forces of reporters in Japan, which never had existed in Japan, Aum cult was disclosed and it became a topic that the police were really watching.

So that’s actually put, in my mind, a big hole into the traditional journalistic system that Japan had. I think that the Japanese public began to believe that it was bad that the reporters club was only listening to the minister because of these results. I think that that is why there is a rise of investigative reporting. This is really a shameful thing for me to say, but the reality, I think, is that is where we are now.

JMR: Is this kind of investigative reportage being published in alternative news sources or traditional newspapers?

Kudo: They were published in ordina
ry newspapers, so it’s not that one newspaper or a new newspaper came or gathered all that investigative reporting. The newspapers and television networks are there, so even the reporters who do not belong to the reporters club have to put their news onto that existing newspapers and television.

JMR: I think one of the things that enables investigative journalism in America and Europe is a distrust that the citizens have for the government. People say that nobody ever trusted a president again in America after Watergate. Do you think Japanese people are more trusting of their officials and are willing to listen to that instead of independent reporters?

Kudo: (An) example is the North Korean abductees. The ministries kept on saying for 25 years that there were no abductees, but actually hundreds of people had been abducted by the North Koreans. So it created a serious problem in people’s minds that maybe the government agencies can tell a lie to the general public.

In terms of domestic incidences, there was HIV-contaminated blood given to those hemophiliac patients who needed blood. The government gave out the HIV-positive contaminated blood, and that made the minister of health give an official an apology on television in a press conference. It was really a very significant event. Before in Japanese history, no one had ever apologized in front of all of all the media. So I think people’s tendency now is to not really have trust in the government. They are beginning to doubt so much (more) than before. Maybe the government is hiding something, or maybe the government is not telling us everything.

JMR: I wanted to ask you about the role of women in journalism. How has it been for you going through all of these things as a woman in the profession?

Kudo: I have found journalism to be one of the most conservative industries for women. People think that the mass media must be a really international, advanced industry, but in reality it is a really underdeveloped and undereducated industry. Especially I found this was so because I joined the media not directly after the graduation from university. I worked for JP Morgan and for McKinsey and Co., so I saw other industries.

As a woman, I really had to face a lot of discrimination. For example, when I just started, people always gave me nonpolitical, non-economical related news, while my counterpart, who was a man, was reading and analyzing the economic and political news. While he was doing that, I was reading something like the pig competition or something like that. I had to introduce that.

I did actually get a master’s degree in economics and I did study law at Tokyo University, and I think I’m quite entitled to this political as well as economic news. When it comes to economic-related news, I said to the producer that I can be much better than my counterpart. But there was always this male jealousy coming from my counterpart, and it was really a struggle just to be able to read the news. The directors and producers were men, so it was really a struggle to view my position in a way to which I feel I was entitled.

It was really interesting, it was a totally different industry than you would think. The people were not international; I found people working in journalism in Japan totally domestically oriented, and they still had this macho image as men that really created a hardship for me.

I remember the winter party, for example, where they would really say something that was really of a sexual nature. They would say something like, “We’re only interested in what kind of lingerie you are wearing. We are not interested what kind of news you are reading.” That’s actually the comment someone said to me. And I thought, “Oh my gosh, this is really atrocious!” But those were the kind of people who had worked up in this really traditional old industry. I have found it not only in directors or producers who are like that.

I’m proud to say I didn’t actually bow to the producer to petition for my news, I was really competing in a very justifiable way. I held to my principles. I would not go out drinking with all those male-oriented people, and there were a lot of things I would not do, but I do not have any regrets because they began to see me as someone different, and they began to treat me in a different way. People began to give me news that was related to economics and politics, and they would give it to me and not to him.

JMR: So you still hear the same stories from women, even now?

Kudo: Yes, I hear the same stories from the women, and I also hear the same stories from the men. They say, “Well, those are newsanchor persons, so if they are a woman, they will appear on news television until they get married, and after they get married we don’t really care about them.” I have heard that from a couple of directors and producers, which is quite an atrocity because just about the time when a female anchorwoman is able to be competent, that’s when she is being stopped. I think it’s really a hindering factor for Japanese journalism.

If you watch the television news in the evening at 5 o’clock or 10 o’clock, you notice that there are a number of women. But if you really watch carefully, there are a lot of combinations of men in their 40s and women in their early 20s, and they are women who are just nodding and smiling. There are a lot of American journalists in Tokyo, and I tell them those are the niko-niko girls. Niko-niko means smile in Japanese. So foreign journalists are being made aware that this is not really being fair.