Election 2005: Did the Press Do Its Job?

Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party scored a landslide win in the Sept. 11 general election. The LDP-New Komeito coalition captured a combined 327 of 480 seats in the House of Representatives, which exceeded the two-thirds threshold of 320 seats needed to override an upper house veto. Just as importantly, voter turnout surged to 67.5 percent in single-seat constituencies, the highest since 1990.

In the past, the higher the turnout, the more likely opposition parties would gain ground. But this time, the trend did not apply. According to exit polls conducted by the Yomiuri media group, unaffiliated voters accounted for 19 percent of those who had cast their ballots. And an unprecedented number of swing voters (32 percent) chose LDP candidates.

Analysts agree that the election results were unprecedented. But we shouldn’t be too surprised because the mainstream media helped the LDP achieve the big win and solidify the “1955 System,” the arrangement that has governed the nation for most of the postwar period.

The 1955 System arose when the Democratic Party and the Liberal Party merged to form the LDP. It was designed to cement the LDP’s monopoly of power — literally as well as figuratively. To that end, a horde of pork-barrel operators in the Diet have kept the system in place with public works projects built on the foundation of corrupt, collusive and close-knit ties uniting business and government.

Nihon Kisha Kurabu, or the Japan National Press Club, has always been an integral part of the 1955 System. Its major role is that of “political sandmen,” to borrow the phrase coined by Ian Buruma, author of Inventing Japan – 1853-1964. Buruma showed that as politicians scattered money around, the media sprinkled sleep powder all over the electorate.

In fact, the 2005 election didn’t bring about any change at all to the system, thanks to the concerted efforts of JNPC members.

Japan National Press Club: What It Really Is

According to “Declaration of Departure from The Press Club System” by Yasuo Tanaka, Nagano governor and now the head of the newly born New Party Nippon, there are more than 800 press clubs in Japan. Some are attached to prefectural or municipal governments and others to central government offices. At all levels, the press clubs are granted an exclusive privilege to report on government activities. So, of course, the privileged media cook the news to the satisfaction of the authorities. For instance, reporters stationed in a rent-free office at a prefectural police department are allowed full access to information concerning crimes on the condition that the rules imposed by the police chief are strictly observed.

On the surface, these press clubs are independent of one another, but they really form an integrated whole supporting the 1955 System. And at the top of the sub-system sits a de facto head office, the Japan National Press Club. The JNPC is a fish that is only viable in a murky stream. For a media organization, it is shy when it comes to media coverage. As a result, we know very little about who funds its operations, what it’s up to, or how it’s organized.

We can, however, tell something about its history. The JNPC was formally founded by Nihon Shimbun Kyokai (NSK), or Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association, in 1949, but actually it dates back to May 1941, seven months before the war in the Pacific broke out. The precursor of NSK was Nihon Shimbun Renmei (NSR), Japan Federation of Newspaper Publishers. NSR acted as the mouthpiece of Dai Hon-ei, or Headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army. Suppression of the press during the war by the military led to suppression afterwards by the U.S.-led Allied occupation forces.

Japanese journalists blamed Gen. Douglas MacArthur only after he left for gagging them, but they didn’t resist new press restraints that followed. They generally accepted a subtler Jishu Kisei (self-censorship) in compliance with tacit demands by the LDP-led government, which wanted to protect its vested interests by taming the press. So the LDP granted favored members of the media a monopoly of information sources and distribution channels. Once the press struck a reciprocal deal with the politicians, the 1955 System was secure.

At every transition of power in Japan, the media automatically repledged loyalty to the new rulers.

Undertone of Mainstream Media’s Coverage of Election 2005

If the press did not change, society did. Now the 1995 System looks even more fragile.

Today, the Japanese media can no longer avoid questioning pork-barrel operators, both in and out of the government, in the wake of an endless series of scandals involving public agencies, lawmakers and private sector companies. So the press has turned the spotlight elsewhere, trying desperately to avoid an examination of itself.

To escape attention, the mainstream media employed the art of misdirection. In the 2005 election, the press tried hard to misguide the public by making it believe that something unprecedented was happening and that it was a prelude to a sea change. LDP president and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi even said he was going to “destroy” the 60-year-old LDP to replace it with a new LDP. The media promoted his deceptive rhetoric from Day One of the campaign through the end. For instance, the Aug. 18 Yomiuri Shimbun editorialized that the “waning of [intra-]LDP factions led to the birth of a new party,” where that wasn’t the case at all.

Actually, what we were seeing during the campaign period was not unprecedented. During the first half of the 1990s, intra-party “rebels” were smoked out of the LDP, or voluntarily fled it. New parties with fancy names mushroomed as a result of the spin-offs, some party mergers ensued, unholy coalitions were formed, and opportunists hopped back and forth between these parties. In the end, the 1955 System survived intact.

Now, the media are continuing their tradition of trumpeting change while nothing occurs. Today the mainstream press tirelessly promotes the fallacy that Japan is transforming itself under the strong leadership of the current prime minister. From Hideki Tojo to Douglas MacArthur to Junichiro Koizumi, the Japanese media love a strong leader.

Media’s Modi Operandi

On Sept. 7, Daniel Sloan, chairman of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan and Reuters business television senior correspondent, told Japanese reporters that the Sept. 11 poll would be a “watershed election.” The Yomiuri Shimbun and other press organizations liked Sloan’s phrase so much that they kept using “watershed” until the last day of the campaign.

Originally, Koizumi declared this election to be a single-issue poll, like a national referendum, to be fought solely over his postal privatization bills. That bill’s vote-down at the House of Councilors on Aug. 8 triggered the dissolution of the House of Representatives. Ever since, Koizumi has used “postal privatization” and “postal reform” interchangeably and opportunistically as if they were synonymous. The media echoed his tricky rhetoric.

In fact, the real issues all boiled down to one root problem — the government’s impending bankruptcy. But all along, the media chose to parrot Koizumi’s distortions about postal reform. The press did get around to reporting other matters — such as Japan’s bid for a permanent seat at the U.N. Security Council — but not with any enthusiasm.

As was true with past elections, there were no valid and viable alternatives for the voting age population at the ballot box. Nonetheless, in recent years the media had been ardently disseminating the false notion that a modern two-party system was taking root. But this time around, they had to drop this fallacy, in part because it was more and more apparent that the major opposition, Democratic Party of Japan, whose support groups include the Postal Workers Union, was nothing more than a double of the LDP.

However, knowing that the consistent downturn in voter turnout in recent years could lead to the collapse of the entire 1955 System, the media were making believe there were decent alternatives. Three new parties were born, and one, Shinto Daichi, formed by Muneo Suzuki whose suspected graft case is currently under litigation, was made to look viable.

To make sure the media’s tricks worked, the Yomiuri Shimbun editorialized, on the morning of the poll, that “the future of the nation [lay] in voters’ hands.” Voters, unfortunately, didn’t wake up in time from their daydream to understand that they had nothing but false choices.

Yet Another False Dawn

In the final chapter of Inventing Japan, Ian Buruma writes of a hiccup of the 1955 System in the tumultuous days of 1993: “It turned out to be another false dawn. The electoral changes did not go far enough to make a difference.” In the post-election landscape, we are now experiencing déjà vu.

On Sept. 20 at the Apple Expo 2005, Paris-based press watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released “Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents,” which is meant to provide know-how and technologies to defeat Internet censors in such countries as China and Iran. Julian Pain, head of RSF’s Internet Freedom desk, writes in the handbook: “Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media are censored or under pressure.”

While “real journalists” in these countries are facing “Great Firewalls,” their Japanese counterparts confront a challenge of a different sort. In October last year, Reporters Without Borders released the results of its third annual survey of press freedom in 167 countries. The report ranked Japan No. 42 from the top, by far the lowest position for a G-7 nation. At that time RSF attributed Japan’s disastrous showing to the fact that the nation’s mainstream media are shackled by the press club system. The press clubs show little evidence of reform, so independent journalists — and bloggers — need to find new ways to bypass the “glass firewall” put up by the system.

Until they can have first-hand access to information sources and talk to the public directly, Japan’s Dark Age will continue.

Probably surprising Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi himself, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) gained a sweeping victory in the House of Representatives election on Sept. 11. Many pointed out that the television coverage of election campaigns had more impact than ever on the long-time ruling party’s historic triumph.

The LDP won a single-party majority, gaining 296 seats of a total of 480 that were up for grabs, while the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the main opposition party, only gained 113 seats and lost 64. The defeat prompted Katsuya Okada to resign as DPJ party leader immediately.

As an ever-increasing number of Japanese people obtain information about political parties and candidates from television, broadcast news programs and talk shows seemed to have a profound impact on the election results.

“The TV election coverage inundated in our daily lives had enormous influence on the public,” said Toshio Ueki, a director of the public relations office at the Central Committee of Japanese Communist Party. “Many people call us to give us their opinion and request based on what they have seen on TV.”

As more people depend on television for information, one of the keys to the election victory is undoubtedly media management and whether a party wins air time. The LDP as well as Koizumi excelled in these areas, while the DPJ did not, analysts said.

In fact, most of the voters interviewed attributed the DPJ’s loss to inconsistencies among its leaders they saw on news programs and talk shows. They cited some comments made by Ichiro Ozawa, a DPJ deputy leader, which were different from what Okada had said.

Koizumi, however, from the start of the election campaign, was trying to monopolize election debates by focusing solely on postal reform, though opposition parties and experts harshly criticized the prime minister and his party, saying a variety of issues should be discussed. On the campaign trail throughout Japan, the premier, tossing his hair before large audiences, repeatedly threw around such slogans as “Don’t stop reform” and “This election is for postal reform.”

Furthermore, in order to defeat members of his own party who voted against his bills on postal reform in early July, Koizumi dispatched so-called “assassins” to their constituency. The LDP-backed “assassins,” some of whom have no experience in politics, included several telegenic women, whipping the media into a frenzy.

As Koizumi was attempting to turn the election into a national referendum on issues of postal businesses, “the media followed his line, calling the occasion the election of assassins,” the Communist Party’s Ueki said. “In that regard, the election coverage was not fair. In fact, on many occasions, we reported to some news programs about their unfair coverage.

“I’m not saying the media should more often broadcast our point of view, but I’m saying fair coverage is the basic principle. This is not for the sake of one party but for the sake of our democracy.”

Ellis Krauss, a professor of Japanese politics and policymaking at the University of California at San Diego, who was in Tokyo to observe the election, agreed that much of the TV and newspaper coverage was about a few celebrity races.

One of the races that Krauss pointed out was in the Hiroshima No. 6 constituency where Takafumi Horie, Internet mogul and president of Livedoor Co., was running as an “assassin” against former LDP legislator Shizuka Kamei. Kamei voted against Koizumi’s postal privatization bills. Horie, who boasts in his book, “Money can buy people’s hearts. Women can be lured by money,” chose to run as an independent, still backed by the LDP.

“Some of the more important issues got ignored. Even after the election, major stories seem to have been about these few celebrities,” Krauss said. “I think, to some extent, the media missed the real significance of this election — how Japanese politics has changed since the electoral reform.

“Here’s the election in which for the first time Mr. Koizumi is moving Japanese politics toward British-model, top-down cabinet government.”

Focusing on celebrity candidates as well as party leaders, the media made the Japanese public “invisible,” some critics pointed out. There was no such thing as a town meeting in this election.

In Japan, “only party leaders and candidates come out in the media, but the media hardly listen to the voice of the people,” said Yoko Yamaguchi, a member of Kanagawa Net, a local women’s party, who also serves as a city councilwoman in Atsugi near Tokyo. “We don’t see what kind of people are supporting this party, who are supporting that party, or why they are supporting the party. Neither did we see the media reporting undecided voters, asking them why they have not made a decision.”

Ken Takeuchi, CEO of the Japan Internet News, was also critical of the media coverage of the election, saying, “The media failed to look at the situations objectively and in a level-headed manner.”

Takeuchi, whose company launched Japan’s first serious alternative online newspaper, Jan Jan (Japan Alternative News for Justices and New Cultures) two years ago, described the election as “aberrational.”

“Mr. Koizumi set up so-called ‘Koizumi Theater’ and constantly captured media attention, and the media themselves got on the stage. And also voters as a whole seemed to get caught up in that theater,” said Takeuchi, a former Asahi Newspaper editorial board member who also served as mayor of Kamakura, near Tokyo.

In a written statement, the public relations office at Nippon Television Network Corporation (NTV) said the network tried not to be preoccupied with such celebrity races, but tried to practice objective reporting.

While major networks hosted more than a dozen TV debates among party leaders before the election, virtually all of them devoted more time to issues of postal reform and downplayed other issues, especially Koizumi’s controversial decision to deploy the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to Iraq to support the U.S.-led rebuilding efforts, the first dispatch of the SDF to a war zone.

For instance, during “The Sunday Project” of TV Asahi on Aug. 28, one of the most popular talk shows in Japan, about 20 minutes were spent on postal reform and nine minutes on pension issues. The program’s host, Soichiro Tawara, however, spared little time for other issues. Many other TV commentators followed suit.

“The strongest theme [of this election] is the privatization of postal businesses,” declared Kenichi Takemura, a regular commentator on “Hodo 2001,” a major talk show program of Fuji Television Network Inc (FNN). Network representatives characterized FNN’s coverage of the election as “sober and fair.”

Most opinion polls, however, suggested most voters were not interested in postal reform. According to polls conducted by major daily Mainichi Shimbun a week before the election, 41 percent of those surveyed saw issues of pension, medical care and nursing care as a top policy concern, while 19 percent pointed out the privatization of postal businesses and 14 percent economy-boosting measures.

Analysts agreed that the media failed to raise various issues and let party leaders discuss them.

“The media hosted a number of TV debates, however, they did not ask party leaders a variety of questions such as issues of the U.S. military presence in Okinawa. Even Tetsuya Chikushi (TBS News 23 anchor) did not,” said Akikazu Hashimoto, a political science professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.

NHK claims the network “had each party discuss wide-ranging topics such as pension issues, diplomacy, defense and constitutional revision, and we believed
we were able to provide voters with information for making a decision.” In addition, we reported
policy issues other than postal business privatization in our election-related news. Therefore,
They added,” We disagree with the criticism that ‘there was not enough discussion on issues other than postal reform.’”

TBS News 23, a nightly news program of Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc., whose anchor, Chikushi, used to cover Okinawa as a young Asahi newspaper reporter, is known for its reports concerning the U.S. military presence on the southern island and discussion on the issues more than other major news programs.

“The mainstream media also did not examine whether Mr. Koizumi had made good on his campaign promises or how such promises had been delivered,” added Hashimoto.

Moreover, critics said that TV news programs and talk shows did not report the contents of the postal businesses privatization bills submitted by the ruling coalition of the LDP andNew Komeito. The media appeared to focus too much on who supported Koizumi’s postal reform and who did not, but seldom reported why they opposed his reform. Oddly, most supporters of Koizumi said they did not know of the bills, but supported him because of his strong leadership and energy.

“The media did not talk about the substance of the postal privatization bills,” said Yamaguchi of Kanagawa Net, who worked in television production for seven years. “Neither did Mr. Koizumi. He just reiterated, ‘We make no headway on reforms without privatizing postal businesses.’”

Eisuke Sakakibara, an influential former vice minister who was nicknamed “Mr. Yen,” emphasized in an interview, “Mr. Koizumi cannot privatize the postal businesses with the bills … initially the government owns 100 percent of this postal company’s shares and at the end it will own one-third. That means the government will be the biggest shareholder and control the company. So this will result in the creation of a bloated state-run business, and we will see money flow from the private sector to the government.”

An expert’s comment like this was hardly reported in major newspapers and networks. Furthermore, on many occasions, Seiko Noda, an LDP member who voted against the bills, asserted on television, “The bills are riddled with flaws.” The media, however, did not report what she meant or what those flaws were.

The public relations office at NTV responded to some criticism, saying the network “made a strong effort to report the contents of ‘postal reform,’ the substance of the [postal privatization] bills and policies that each party put up for the election.”

What seems to be very strange is the restriction on the use of the Internet for political end in one of the most technology-obsessed countries. Japanese election law prohibits parties and candidates from creating or updating homepages or blogs during the 12 days of official campaigning.

The 55-year-old public office election law does not actually mention use of the Internet. According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Electoral Management Committee, a Web site is illegal because the information on the homepage could be printed out and disseminated as a fliers.

Critics said the LDP is reluctant to revise the law because their long-time supporters and members are not technology-savvy people.

“It’s odd, isn’t it?” asked Takeuchi of Japan Internet News. “The law is helplessly backward.”

The first the publisher of Kami no Bakudan (“Paper Bomb”) knew about his impending arrest was at 6 a.m. when he opened his morning edition of The Asahi Shimbun “Kobe prosecutors issue arrest warrant for Rokusaisha publishing house president on suspicion of defamation,” it read. He hurriedly picked up the phone to his editor: “It looks like there is a warrant out for my arrest.”

Soon reporters and TV crews had gathered outside his home and office. At 8 a.m. Kobe prosecutors arrived and escorted Toshiyasu Matsuoka to the publisher’s main office to be arrested. He barely had time to make a comment to the media before being taken away to Kobe detention center. “This is a violation of the 21st (free speech) clause of the constitution. We will fight this,” he said.

Prosecutors cited quarterly magazines and books published by Rokusaisha, as well as material on their Web site. They accuse the publisher of defaming executives of Aruze Corp. pachinko maker with allegations of tax evasion and unethical business practices. The publisher is also accused of defaming ex-employees of the Hashin Tigers baseball team with allegations that a former scout for the team was murdered.

The publisher is already being sued by Aruze for libel, but Kami no Bakudan editor Motohiro Nakagawa says they were still shocked when Matsuoka was criminally charged. As one freelance writer and contributor to weekly magazines in Japan, Benjamin Fulford put it: “libel is something you sue people for, not arrest them.”

There is concern that the arrest may intimidate other magazines, and non-establishment media say they are wondering who will be next.

While the facts of the arrest were covered by most of Japan’s national newspapers, the media in general has shown little solidarity with Rokusaisha. Even Japan’s leading liberal daily, The Asahi Shimbun, has effectively looked the other way since Matsuoka’s arrest – although an Asahi reporter interviewed Matsuoka the day before he was taken into custody, and the paper reported the arrest several hours before it happened. Editor Nakagawa suspects the newspaper used its contacts in the Kobe prosecutor’s office. “The Asahi Shimbun reporters in the police press club knew more about what was happening we did,” he said.

Of the weeklies, only the Shukan Asahi weekly magazine offered robust support. In a two-page interview, Yasunori Okadome, the editor of recently defunct scandal magazine Uwasa no Shinso (“The Truth Behind the Rumors”), was unequivocal about the implications of the arrest: “If we casually permit a member of the media to be arrested on suspicion of defamation, it is the same as if freedom of speech had died.” (For more information on Uwasa no Shinso see here.)

As a small circulation publication, Kami no Bakudan may have been a relatively easy target for the authorities. Despite the magazine’s pledge to continue the work of infamous Uwasa no Shinso, it has failed to attract anything like that scandal magazine’s readership. At its peak, Uwasa no Shinso’s circulation rivaled other weekly magazines, but Kami no Bakudan’s four editions so far have sold around 25,000 copies each.

Kami no Bakudan’s murky image (even for a muckraking weekly magazine) won’t have helped its cause, says Shunsuke Yamaoka, a freelance contributor to the magazine. “Even if it is attacked, Rokusaisha is the kind of company that other media won’t support,” he says. “It is considered a scandal magazine . . . not a serious magazine.” He adds that the publisher hasn’t established the friendly links with other media that Uwasa no Shinso enjoyed. Many of that magazine’s scoops came via journalists in the mainstream media.

“[Uwasa no Shinso] may have been a black sheep, but it was still part of the herd,” agrees Mark Schreiber, co-author of Tabloid Tokyo, a book of translated articles from Japan’s scandal weeklies. Rokusaisha, on the other hand, is on the fringes of the media in more ways than one, he notes. “This is a Kansai (Western Japan) based publication with national circulation; that’s very rare.”

The headline of Kami no Bakudan’s September “Emergency Special Edition” reads “Unlawful arrest. This is how far suppression of speech has come.” Editor Motohiro Nakagawa claims the government has clamped down of freedom of speech with a series of new laws introduced on the pretext of protecting privacy and human rights. Matsuoka’s arrest was the latest unusually direct example of suppression, he says. “There was no likelihood of flight or of concealing evidence, but he was still arrested. That’s why we think this is suppression of freedom of speech,” Nakagawa said.

Yasunori Okadome, ex-editor and publisher of Uwasa no Shinso, agreed that authorities are making life more and more difficult for non-establishment media with ever steeper libel payouts. Over 25 years of publishing Uwasa no Shinso, Okadome was involved in around 40 libel cases, but payouts are 10 times higher now than when his magazine began. The most famous plaintiffs, notably TV personalities and politicians, get the most money, he said. “Effectively, they are saying ‘don’t write about politicians.’”

Okadome worries that the authorities are preparing the way for a further crackdown by starting with an easy target. He is concerned that the authorities may use the precedent of Matsuoka’s arrest to move on to larger and more influential publications. “You could say that it has become easier to arrest publishers for defamation. [Other magazines] will be afraid. They don’t know when they will be targeted.”

The weeklies have an undeserved image of unreliability, which makes them vulnerable to legal action, according to weekly magazine contributor Fulford. The typical public attitude is that “you can trust it if it is in the Asahi or Yomiuri, but not if it’s in the weeklies,” he said, “[although] there’s a clued-in group, especially among the intelligentsia, who don’t believe the main media.” He stressed that editorial checks on his weekly magazine articles were as least as thorough as for his correspondent job for a major Western business magazine. “Actually, [the weeklies] have been so sued and persecuted that they are very cautious.”

Yet some commentators are skeptical about any wider crackdown. “I think this is par for the course,” said Schreiber. “In one form or another, these publications are constantly in trouble.” He pointed out that the magazines rely on scandal-seeking reports, often outrageous invasions of privacy, for the bread and butter of their business. To that extent, legal action comes with territory.

And he doesn’t believe that magazines like Uwasa no Shinso and Kami no Bakudan are quite the fearless taboo-breakers they make themselves out to be. “Some of [their journalists] take the position that they are crusaders,” said Schreiber. “They make a show of being fearless, but they don’t have the time or the money to go out there and really dig. They are dependent on people dropping stuff in their laps. It is a forum for people who want to spill the beans.”

As for Kami no Bakudan, even the magazine admits they went looking for trouble. The self-titled “terrorists of the pen” said they set out to push the boundaries of free speech “to their very limit.” “It turned out that the risks from being an extremist group were all too large,” noted the magazine in its latest edition.

Several freelance journalists interviewed for this article also alleged Rokusaisha had become involved (perhaps willingly) in a factional struggle within the Pachinko industry. In contrast to predecessor Uwasa no Shinso’s wide-ranging assault on a spectrum of media “taboos,” Rokusaisha has concentrated on their pursuit of Aruze, publishing no less than four books on the topic. That may have dissuaded other media from backing the publisher in its fight for free speech.

Kami no Bakudan is one of a variety of publications within the weekly magazine market, with a wide range of journalistic standards. At one end are scandal magazines like Uwasa no Shinso or Kami no Bakudan, and at the other are semi-respectable magazines like the Shukan Bunshun or Shukan Shincho. And there are freelancers working for titles at both extremes. Many strive to cover issues that their mainstream media colleagues won’t (or can’t) report. Some do more than just write about the twilight world of criminal gangs, police corruption and blackmail that fuels the scandal publishing industry. “There are so-called ‘black journalists’ who earn even more money from the articles they don’t publish, than the ones they do,” said Fulford.

Yet, whatever the innuendo over the background to Matsuoka’s arrest, questions still remain unanswered. Why were criminal charges applied rather than a civil libel case? Did the authorities just take an opportunity to pinch in the boundaries of free expression a little, knowing that few would support a small controversial publisher?

Toshiyasu Matsuoka was charged on Aug. 1 and is will appear in court on Oct. 17. Rokusaisha says that they expect him to remain imprisoned at least until then. Kami no Bakudan editor Nakagawa admits that given the nature of the contents of their magazine, they are resigned to legal action. But the incarceration of their publisher “has completely different implications.” “If we are arrested we can’t express our opinion at all.” he says. “We may be ruined.”