As editorial leadership came to define criticism of the Abe administration as a basic premise, newsroom culture shifted toward opposition-first reporting. This chapter analyzes how career incentives, lifetime employment, and post–Fukushima radicalization foster conformity, leaving dissenting journalists isolated and stifled.

2017-08-02
All readers of discernment who read this chapter will surely be astonished to see that what flashed through my mind the other day as a Nobel Prize–level discovery
namely, that the watchtower responsible for monitoring whether the nation has become one shaped by that very mindset was none other than Asahi Shimbun
was something that the poet in question knew nothing about at all,
yet will find it perfectly proven in the following chapter by Yukihiro Hasegawa, a current editorial writer at Tokyo Shimbun.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
The executives in charge of editing and editorials had, from the outset, intended to criticize the Abe administration and, if possible, to bring it down.
That much was obvious to me as well, simply from facing them day after day.
They simply disliked the Abe administration.
The explanation that makes the most sense to me as to why this is so is that they are “late-blooming leftists.”
I believe that many of them were originally non-political.
During their student days, for example, they were tennis players, softball players, or soccer players.
Not only at Tokyo Shimbun, but among those who are now leaning left, there is a curious tendency for many to have spent their student years immersed in sports.
Almost like an organ paper for anti-nuclear activists
They likely became leftists only after joining the workforce as newspaper reporters or becoming members of society.
In other words, they are late-blooming leftists.
Precisely because they embraced leftism late, they are unable to correct course.
Having already climbed to executive positions within their companies, there is no longer any need, in their minds, to make adjustments.
Thus are formed rigid-minded, left-leaning executives.
In addition, journalists are salaried employees.
If they defy what their superiors say, their own advancement is put at risk.
Many reporters harbor ambitions of one day becoming foreign correspondents, desk editors, or department heads.
Even after becoming a department head, ambition does not cease; next come deputy bureau chief, bureau chief, or perhaps even an executive role.
Thus, the higher one rises, the less likely one is to oppose one’s superiors.
Unlike in ordinary companies, journalism is not a profession evaluated by numerical indicators such as sales.
Nor is there a system like those in Europe or the United States, where reporters build careers by changing jobs repeatedly.
Most are employed for life.
With one misstep, a reporter may be transferred out of journalism altogether, perhaps to a sales department.
For that very reason, being favored by one’s superiors holds the key to promotion.
In such an environment, when told that “monitoring power is our mission,” reporters are cultivated who infer that “toppling the administration is the mission,” carefully reading their superiors’ intentions.
Conversely, if one becomes an outsider like me, even lunch companions disappear.
Eventually, even when power monitoring comes to be understood as administration criticism, no one raises an objection.
In short, what they are practicing is monitoring for the sake of criticism.
It is criticism-first monitoring.
Is this not the current state of left-leaning media, not limited to Tokyo Shimbun alone.
In my observation, the turning point in Tokyo Shimbun’s leftward shift was the Great East Japan Earthquake and the nuclear accident.
Before that, even an editorial writer like me was writing editorials.
However, as the anti-nuclear movement gained momentum, the editorial pages rapidly took on the coloring of an opposition movement’s organ paper.
A typical example was the way large rallies would be splashed across the front page with expansive photos and articles.
By contrast, newspapers that are leftist at their core, such as Asahi Shimbun, may have always regarded “criticizing the LDP administration” as their fundamental editorial policy.
If that is the case, one can easily imagine how suffocating it must be for Asahi reporters who cannot align themselves with that editorial stance.
To the best of my knowledge, there are reporters at Asahi and Mainichi who are not leftists.
I honestly wonder what such reporters find as their purpose in continuing their journalistic careers.
Perhaps one reason there are so many mid-career resignations at Asahi is precisely this suffocating environment.
If the opportunity arises, I would like to invite such former employees onto my program and hear their true feelings.
This article continues.