This essay documents what the author sees as two decades of systematic bias in NHK Osaka’s flagship program “Hotto Kansai,” including the political instrumentalization of students, uncritical airing of voter abstention, and persistent anti-government framing. It argues that such practices fundamentally undermine democratic responsibility within a publicly funded broadcaster.

The NHK Osaka program “Hotto Kansai,” broadcast from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m., can be said without exaggeration to be NHK Osaka’s flagship program.
In any case, this program has been a truly appalling example of biased reporting for the past twenty years.
I am convinced that the individuals who control the NHK Osaka news division are not genuine Japanese.
It is an undeniable historical fact that, in the chaos immediately after the war, the largest number of people infiltrated NHK from organizations such as Chongryon.
I am convinced that those now in control are their descendants.
As for the broadcast content shaped by their anti-Japanese ideology, examples such as the outrageous reporting on the history of Korean diplomatic missions have already been discussed elsewhere.
First anti-Abe reporting, and now anti-Takaichi reporting.
This is truly beyond tolerable limits.
Yesterday’s episode of “Hotto Kansai” was no longer forgivable.
As usual, it was the day hosted by that woman.
She is the same host who, at the end of last year, devoted an extended segment to defending the outrageous figure Xue Jian, the Chinese Consul General in Osaka.
As for what kind of program yesterday’s broadcast was, NHK Osaka has used this method repeatedly over the past twenty years whenever the occasion arises.
Simply put, they use children.
I will return to this point later.
Last night’s reporting took the following form.
They featured universities holding entrance examinations, even bringing on admissions officials from Sophia University or Gakushuin, institutions that belong to NHK’s own circle.
Under the guise of interviewing several examinees who possess the right to vote, it was in reality a broadcast criticizing the Takaichi administration.
I am frankly tired of writing this, but I felt compelled to do so because last night’s broadcast was truly intolerable.
They interviewed several individuals and had them voice criticism of the Takaichi administration.
In other words, NHK Osaka used high school examinees to criticize the holding of a snap general election at this time.
This is their truly despicable method over the past twenty years, and ordinarily it could have been ignored.
However, what I found utterly unforgivable was the manner in which they gleefully broadcast, without any admonition, the fact that about two of the interviewees said they would not vote.
They also gleefully broadcast statements by dull-minded examinees who said they would vote but wished they had more time to study the parties, as if it were impossible to compare political parties in the span of several tens of minutes.
There were about two examinees who explicitly said they would not go to vote.
Any respectable broadcaster would, at that moment, naturally admonish them by saying that they must go and vote.
Yet NHK Osaka offered no such admonition whatsoever and instead gleefully aired the remarks.
Moreover, this segment occupied an extraordinarily long portion of the broadcast, to the extent that it could be said to constitute nearly the entirety of that day’s program.
It was presented like a special feature, and the man in charge, standing at the podium, was also appalling.
Such a thing would be unthinkable for a respectable broadcaster.
It would be unthinkable even in China or on the Korean Peninsula, for whom they act as proxies.
He was a strangely tall man with long, unkempt hair, displaying tanned skin as if he frequented tanning salons.
He was a young man with an eerie appearance, in whom not the slightest trace of sincerity or intelligence could be discerned.
Once the election is over, the Japanese people must, at the very least, examine those who control the NHK news division.
The folly of continuing to pay such people high salaries from taxpayers’ money during the administration’s term, while allowing them to persist in criticizing the Japanese government, must be brought to an end with this instance.
Those who control the NHK Osaka news division, anti-Japanese Japanese, must be immediately arrested and detained for treason, following the examples of China and the Korean Peninsula, and punished severely.
As for their ringleader, no, indeed all of them, the death penalty would not be excessive.
They are precisely the criminals who have brought about Japan’s great decline over the past thirty years.