information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise
8 Février 2014
February 7, 2014
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/editorial/AJ201402070059
Writers and scholars are free to embrace and present any idea. But when they take part in running public broadcasts, they need to show a proper sense of balance.
That is why the Broadcast Law stipulates that governors of Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) are required to possess the ability to make “fair judgment concerning public welfare.”
In this regard, we strongly doubt that two NHK governors, Naoki Hyakuta and Michiko Hasegawa, meet this requirement.
Hyakuta, a best-selling novelist, not only made a campaign speech for a candidate of the Tokyo gubernatorial race, but he also repeatedly demeaned other candidates by calling them “lowlifes.”
Two months before her appointment as NHK governor, Hasegawa, a Saitama University professor emeritus specializing in comparative ideology and Japanese cultural studies, contributed a piece to a collection of essays paying tribute to Shusuke Nomura, a right-wing activist who shot himself at the president’s office of The Asahi Shimbun in Tokyo in 1993. Her writing has stirred controversy.
The two were appointed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that making campaign speeches on behalf of candidates and expressing thoughts and beliefs “do not violate the Broadcast Law.” He indicated such acts are not a problem.
However, the law provides such restrictions as limiting the number of governors who belong to the same political party because of the assumed risk that those governors could wield political influence.
For the same reason, the law does not give governors the power to involve themselves in the production of individual programs.
Just because there are no provisions restricting the behavior of governors, it does not mean they can do as they like and ignore their responsibilities as supervisors of the public broadcaster.
The way Hyakuta publicly slandered other candidates is a problem beyond the Broadcast Law. His character and judgment as a decent member of society rather than an NHK governor should be questioned.
Nomura brought pistols into The Asahi Shimbun’s Tokyo head office in 1993, and shot himself to death while talking with the president and other Asahi executives. In her essay, Hasegawa wrote: “Once he (Nomura) chanted “Sumeramikoto iyasaka” (Long live the emperor) three times, (regardless of what the ‘humanity declaration’ and the Japanese Constitution say), the reigning emperor once again became an ‘akitsumikami’ (deity who is a human being).”
Was her appointment appropriate in terms of the requirements for an NHK governor? The administration is urged to clarify its view.
NHK explains on its website what a public broadcaster is. Unlike a state-sponsored broadcaster, which is “run under strong state supervision,” a public broadcaster is “run independent from state control,” according to NHK.
However, NHK’s management structure makes it difficult to maintain its independence from the government. This is because the prime minister appoints governors, and the board of governors has the power to appoint and dismiss the NHK chairman.
That is all the more reason why the administration and NHK need to maintain tension to keep a proper distance from each other and make efforts to restrain themselves to uphold public trust for fairness.
NHK must not undermine the trust that viewers and listeners as well as its staff members have painstakingly built for many years.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 7
/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.over-blog.com%2Ft%2Fcedistic%2Fcamera.png)