Melanie Wilcox Journalism Abroad

Media Censorship in Japan

Introduction

Japan’s Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) ranking dropped 11 places from No. 61 in 2015 to No. 72 in 2016.1 While press freedom in Asia has declined, Japan’s descent demands attention because it has the criteria of a country that would typically have a high level of press freedom: it’s a developed country that has the world’s third- largest economy and a democracy that guarantees freedom of speech, press and assembly.

Three main factors have caused Japan to fall in the rankings: the enactment of the 2014

Secrets Law, Shinzo Abe’s administration, and a culture of self-censorship within the kisha

(press) clubs. These three “s’s” – the Secrets Law, Shinzo Abe, and self-censorship – coupled with the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown lowered Japan’s ranking. This report also explains why Japan’s WPFI rose to No. 67 in 2018, but the initial steep drop from 2015 requires analysis.2

Secrets Law

In 2013 under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s tenure, the Japanese Diet passed the

“Designated Secrets Protection Bill,” which enables government officials to keep documents private for up to 60 years with minimal oversight.3 Enacted a year later, the State Special Secrets

Law includes up to a 10-year prison sentence for any bureaucrat or journalist who leaks documents and sources the government considers “secret.”4

1 Kaiman, J. 2 2018 World Press Freedom Index 3 Gaens, B. 4 McCurry, J.

1 Proponents argue the Secrets Law will smoothen the exchanges and the sharing of information between Japan’s National Security Council (NSC) and the United States. The United

States used to only share intelligence with certain Japanese government offices covered by strict legislation. The creation of the NSC as a centralized umbrella organization has given America confidence to expand intelligence sharing outside of Japan’s Ministry of Defense and Self-

Defense Forces. The law expands the number or government offices that can hold state secrets and enforces penalties on journalists and whistleblowers who reveal any information deemed secret.5 Supporters cite concern over China’s military and North Korea’s weapons as a reason alone to enforce the law.6

Opponents argue the Secret Law does not adequately define a “state secret.” If the law prevents films from being made, or weakens freedom of the press, I’ll resign,” Abe famously said. Yet, the vague terminology has discouraged reporters from publishing stories that might instigate legal action, so they self-censor as a preventative strategy. 7 While doing their job, a journalist could ask for secret information without even realizing it, and then be subject to imprisonment.8 They also say that officials will abuse the law by concealing information that may embarrass the government. It interferes with people’s “right to know,” said Susumu

Murakoshi, president of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations. Other critics say the law will take Japan backwards to prewar times, when the state used the Peace Preservation Act to imprison anyone who disagreed with the government’s agenda.9

Proponents view the law as a way for Japan to break away and move forward from the

Yoshida Doctrine, created after World War II as a way for Japan to preserve itself and remain

5 Gaens, B. 6 McCurry, J. 7 Furukawa, H., & Denison, R. 8 Kingston, J. (2014, December 13). 9 McCurry, J.

2 insular. They say the Secrets Law will enable Japan’s need to participate in world affairs.

Opponents believe it will take Japan to an archaic time of Japanese militarism. Reporters

Without Borders called the new law “an unprecedented threat to freedom of information.”10 By

the end of 2017, the government had 517 designated state secrets.11 Japan scholar Jeff Kingston

writes that Americans know this story well from Nixon blocking the publication of the Pentagon

Papers, which revealed details the government did not want the public to know about Vietnam. A

similar case can be said about whistleblower Edward Snowden.12

Shinzo Abe

Leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Shinzo Abe has served as Prime Minister

since 2012. Before that, he served for about a year, between 2006 to 2007, until he resigned due

to a series of scandals and poor health.13 Abe wanted to avoid the mistakes of his first term. In

addition to passing the Secrets Law, Abe and his administration intervened in media affairs to

enhance his favorability ratings. Let’s look at the facts.

-- Unwarranted appointments. Abe appointed Katsuto Momii as chairman of NHK, Japan’s

national public broadcaster. Momii, who had no media background, downplayed Japan’s comfort

women and violence against women in Tokyo at the end of 2000. The Imperial Japanese Army

forced comfort women into sexual slavery during World War II. Momii said, “We cannot say left

when the government says right” (2013).14

-- Unfair coverage. The government told mainstream television stations how to select news topics,

interview subjects, and avoid “one-sided” coverage (2014).15 Abe wrote to television

10 McCurry, J. 11 Jiji. 12 Kingston, J. (2014, December 13). 13 Sieg, L. 14 Beale, Charlotte. 15 Beale, Charlotte.

3 broadcasters ahead of his election, demanding balanced press. The press took that as a signal to

tame criticism, or else they would lose access to officials (2014).16

-- Untruthful history. Abe supported neo-nationalist groups and right-wing organizations to

discredit the The Asahi Shimbun newspaper for reporting on comfort women. Asahi’s apologized

for interviewing a discredited World War II veteran, but rightwing news outlets like Yomoiuri

and Sankei criticized Asahi even though they had relied on faulty statements. They did this to

minimize any sort of comfort women problem. 17

-- Unjustifiable “public relations.” After the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, Asahi

reported that workers disobeyed their manager, Masao Yoshida, and went to a different nuclear

power plant about six miles away. Asahi reported this information from Yoshida’s testimony,

withheld from the public, including a part about workers fearing for their lives. To the public, the

Abe administration made it seem that they were “dedicated plant workers selflessly doing

whatever was required to contain the nuclear disaster.”18 Even though Yoshida’s testimony was

supposed to be private, Abe’s office leaked the entire transcript to Yomiuri and Sankei so they

could respond to Asahi and accuse them of sensationalizing.19

What’s ironic about the situation with Asahi’s discredited reporting is that the liberal-

minded paper put together an investigative team in order to regain the public’s trust after the

media downplayed Chernobyl. They wanted to regain public trust in the media. Aligned with

Abe, other media outlets tried to prevent this from happening.

Shinzo Abe has also indirectly affected reporters’ careers. Weighed by the consequences

of reporting investigative journalism, several news outlets have fired their most vocal critics.

16 Sieg, L. 17 Kingston, J. (2018). 18Kingston, J. (2018). 19 Kingston, J. (2018).

4 -- Asahi. TV Asahi’s fired a producer of “Hodo Station,” an investigative nightly news program,

for not obeying the company’s warnings of lessening his criticism of Abe’s government (2014).20

-- NHK. NHK caved into government pressure and cancelled Hiroko Kuniya’s show Close-up

Gendai. It was “one of the few efforts by NHK or any major media outlet to do anything

remotely approaching investigative, public-interest journalism, and in a prominent time slow,”

Martin Fackler, former Tokyo bureau chief of The New York Times. NHK’s “News Watch 9”

anchor Kensuke Okoshi left because he disagreed with a bureaucrat (2015).

-- Reuters. Former trade ministry official Shigeaki Koga told Reuters he would not be allowed to

appear as a guest commentator anymore because of his criticism of Abe. Koga criticized Abe for

not stopping the hostage crisis in which Islamic State militants killed two Japanese captives

(2014).21 He said, “We’ve reached the stage where even without the government doing anything,

mass media produce articles that cozy up to authorities or refrain from criticism.”22

Self-censorship and Fukushima

What’s clear from the research is that the actions of Abe and his administration have

intimidated and silenced journalists. While Abe has created a culture of self-censorship, most

notably under his Secrets Law, before the law media outlets had been self-censoring to get

sources and access to information, like how Yomoiuri and Sankei did with the plant manager’s

testimony. It’s no coincidence that Fukushima preceded the Secrets Law by only two years.

The public criticized the press for parroting talking points of the government and Tokyo

Electric Power Company (TEPCO) after the Fukushima meltdown. They had valid reasons to do

so: TEPCO spends about $192 million per year on advertising. Some say this is why reporters

20 Sieg, L. 21 Sieg, L. 22 Sieg, L.

5 conservatively covered TEPCO. TEPCO has close ties with government officials, and many journalists have ties to TEPCO. Many have gone on to work for pro-nuclear organizations and publications.23 The Fukushima commission chairman Kiyoshi Kurokawa blamed the disaster on

Japan’s culture of obedience and reluctance to question authority.24

In fact, Asahi was the only paper that revealed Fukushima’s “culture of complacency, regulatory capture, and cost-cutting measures that compromised public safety.” Proponents of nuclear power in various industries – politics, unions, media, and academia – targeted them, verifying Kurokawa’s hypothesis. Abe’s administration encouraged competing news outlets to discredit anything Asahi reported about what happened at Fukushima.

It wasn’t easy for other dissenters to speak up. An NGO filed charges against journalist

Mari Takenouchi for tweeting about how the organization was encouraging people to inhabit areas contaminated with radioactivity from Fukushima. Advocacy groups helped Takenouchi, but Japan’s “guilty until proven innocent” mentality means accusations carry serious weight.25

The reality that the newly-created National Regulatory Agency (NRA) and International

Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) gave 26 suggestions about how Japan could improve its nuclear reactor buildings shows that the media genuinely did not know about these shortcomings, they were threatened from publishing anything defamatory, or they took a risk like Asahi and got punished for it. What if reporters investigated the Fukushima accident showed how the relationships between regulators and utilities compromised the safety of the Japanese?26

The handling of Fukushima before and shortly after the crisis corroborates Kurokawa’s point. Perhaps Sarah Repucci, Project Director of Freedom House’s Freedom in the World

23 Freedom House. 24 Horowitz, A. 25 Freedom House. 26 Kingston, J. (2014, December 13).

6 project, said it best: “Sometimes you don’t ever need to implement a law, if by its existence you are able to encourage self-censorship.”27 Fukushima happened before the Secrets Law was enacted. Abe responded by censoring the media. “I think this is the first time that criticism of the government itself has been so restrained,” said Shinichi Hisadome, a foreign news editor at the Tokyo Shimbun.28

David Kaye, the United Nations special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, slammed the press for embedding with government ministries and agencies. He blamed the kisha press club system for not doing enough investigative reporting that would otherwise better distinguish them from government officials.

Access journalism has replaced investigative journalism, he said.29 A writer for Asahi said,

“Kisha club is the place of official announcement and official agenda setting. It is not the place where you can find the most important information… in Japan, the press can do its job, though it is often said that Japanese press is well-controlled by the government.”30

A Case for Optimism

Japan’s ranking did rise five spots in 2017. Despite Abe’s efforts to intimidate and restrain the media, the Asahi has held the government accountable. They broke a story about how a school operator, Moritomo Gakuen, privately secured public land at an 86 percent discount.

The school owner, Yasunori Kagoike, pledged to name a school after Abe.

The second scandal involved Abe’s friend, Kotary Kake, opening a veterinary school with the help of the Abe’s office. It was the first veterinary school opened in half a century. The reporting showed Abe’s colleagues acted to win their boss’ favor. They did not challenge Abe,

27 Pollmann, M. 28 Sieg, L. 29 Kingston, J. (2018). 30 Kingston, J. (2018).

7 the media reported. In both cases, Abe and his administration denied these stories and contradicted themselves while doing so. 31

Conclusion

Fueled by the Fukushima crisis, the culture of self-censorship, manipulation by the Abe administration, and the enactment of the Secrets Law have lowered Japan’s press freedom ranking. The public recognizes the problem. In February of 2015, nearly 3,000 people, including journalists and scholars, signed a statement raising concern about freedom of expression.32

Despite the culture of the kisha press clubs, some media outlets like The Japan Times have questioned how Abe gathers his economic data. The Japan Times’ William Pesek wrote that

Abe’s “sunny figures” overstate Japan’s economic vitality, and that reporting rosy numbers actually undermines Japan’s economy. “Try spinning that as victory,” he said.33 Judging from both the Fukushima and the hostage crisis, the same could be said about national security.

31 Kingston, J. (2018). 32 Sieg, L. 33 Pesek, W.

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