NHK in the headlights

After a slew of scandals, critics call into question Japan's public broadcaster's ability to fulfill it 50-year-old mission, reports Saqib Rahim

By Saqib Rahim
AsiaMedia Staff Writer

Friday, February 11, 2005

The recent string of scandals surrounding NHK -- most recently, the alleged government censorship of a program about WWII 'comfort women' -- have brought up the question of whether the public broadcaster is still capable of fulfilling its 55-year-old mission.

That mission was set out in 1950 by Japan's Broadcast Law , which established NHK as a semi-governmental organization whose goal was twofold: to present "abundant and high quality broadcast programs for the public welfare" and to inncrease broadcast technology using government support. Funding was to come primarily from television owners, who would be required to pay a subscription fee.

NHK, which stands for Nippon Hoso Kyokai, was also to be free from external influence; the Broadcast Law stipulated that broadcast programs "shall never be interfered with or regulated by any person." Ellis Krauss, author of Broadcasting Politics in Japan: NHK and Television News (Cornell University Press, 2000), described this relationship as making NHK "autonomous from, but somewhat accountable to, the government."

But a series of embezzlement scandals in late 2004 and early 2005, in concert with the recently alleged comfort women censorship case said to have occurred in 2001, have brought critics out of the woodwork -- not least among them, an increasingly frustrated public -- who ask for a reevaluation NHK and its charter.

One of these critics is Steve Herman, a veteran foreign correspondent who worked for four years at NHK headquarters in Tokyo. Herman questions the public broadcaster ability to continue its 50-year-old mission in Japan's increasingly diverse media milieu.

In the early days of broadcasting, he says, Japan needed a state-funded nationwide broadcaster. "NHK gave Japan a common dialect and was the true voice of the country for many decades," he says. Moreover, NHK's governmental support gave it the resources to provide what small commercial broadcasters could not: extensive news coverage, big-budget programs, and unmatched transmitting power.

But over fifty years after NHK's inception, Herman says, NHK's method and purpose are obsolete. Emerging media technologies have achieved the range and scope of content once unique to NHK. "With cable, satellite and a plethora of broadcasters of all sizes, NHK's raison d'etre is moot," he says.

Herman adds that while NHK's content avoids the typical sensationalism of Japan's commercial outlets, its programming is "boilerplate" and neutered. "It clearly has a bias towards the 'status quo,'" he says. "NHK's stance seems to be that no matter how dire the situation, it must soothe the viewer or listener."

To be sure, some parts of the Broadcast Law might favor this kind of approach. One provision (which applies to all domestic broadcasters) states that programming "shall not disturb public security and good morals and manners," and another that it "shall be politically impartial."

Liberal Democratic Party member Shinzo Abe, who has been implicated in the censorship case, presumably referred to these clauses as part of his defense, saying that he merely pointed out bias in the comfort women program to NHK executives.

Krauss, however, agrees with Herman's assessment of the broadcaster's content. NHK, he says, has tended to approach its coverage "in a totally neutral, factual, and non-interesting way." Moreover, Krauss claims, while NHK is a reliable source of public affairs information, it is also "very bad about providing perspective, different points of view, or interpretation" of that information.

NHK's difficulties might relate to the fact that it has traditionally enjoyed public trust. A 1997 study cited by Krauss found that 79% of respondents trusted NHK, while just 38% of respondents trusted commercial broadcasters. That high trust contrasts markedly with the recent news that 400,000 Japanese citizens withheld their subscription fees because they are frustrated with the broadcaster's scandals.

Nevertheless, NHK's mission is still valid, says NHK Los Angeles bureau chief Takachi Ichinose, and his organization still holds a unique place in Japan's broadcast world. "It's under the law," he says of the broadcaster's task.

Ichinose points out NHK's disaster coverage as an example of its necessity to Japanese media. NHK provided, for example, 24-hour coverage in the immediate aftermath of the Niigata earthquake in early November.

Since commercial broadcasters are not legally bound to cover such events, he says, NHK's mandate gives it a unique role in domestic media. "There are alternatives," he acknowledges, "but there are no other public broadcasters."

Herman disputes this claim; he asks if a broadcaster even needs to be public. Privatizing NHK, he says, would force it to be more accountable to the public in the same ways that the recently-privatized telephone and rail industries have given consumers more control.

Such a move might also quell the worries of those concerned that the broadcaster's relationship with the ruling LDP might blunt its coverage of government affairs. In a November 14 op-ed in the Japan Times, Philip Brasor offered an example of this alleged timidness toward the conservative LDP. Although government assistance was a matter of controversy in the immediate aftermath of the Niigata earthquake, Brasor wrote, "no one on the NHK side said anything about whether or not the central government was or should be helping more."

Both Herman and Krauss express concern that this connection, once required for support, might now render NHK submissive in its coverage of the government. Ichinose, however, staidly refuses any charge that the government plays a role in the broadcaster's content. NHK's content, he maintains, "is free from governmental oversight."

Date Posted: 2/11/2005