This essay criticizes the biased coverage by NHK’s News Watch 9 regarding the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare statistics controversy. It argues that opposition politicians and major media outlets created a narrative of misconduct through selective framing while ignoring basic statistical realities. The essay also highlights contradictions in the media’s own survey practices and examines the broader issue of double standards in Japanese political discourse.

2019-02-14
An example of the malice revealed in last night’s reporting by NHK’s News Watch 9 was how they handled the issue concerning the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
Arima stood completely on the side of the opposition parties.
Facing Kuwako, who embodies a naive form of left-wing infantilism, he began what could only be described as a picture-story performance, like a union activist indoctrinating an innocent college student.
He claimed that the replacement of surveyed companies in 2015 was somehow evidence of malicious and arbitrary manipulation by the government.
In reality, considering the natural turnover among companies, such replacements are entirely normal.
Yet opposition politicians, who could hardly be described as anything other than agents of anti-Japan interests, seized upon this as an opportunity.
Their aim was obvious: to divert the Japanese public’s increasingly severe view toward South Korea.
And last night’s Watch 9 proved exactly that point.
Reluctantly and at the very end of the political segment, they briefly mentioned the remarks made in the United States by the Speaker of the South Korean National Assembly.
However, Arima did not comment on it at all and immediately moved on to the next topic.
Opposition politicians casually declared that real wages had fallen, citing documents of uncertain origin, perhaps obtained through collaborators within the ministry.
Such conduct by these political opportunists has reached a level where no remedy exists for their folly.
What should Watch 9 have done instead?
It should have disclosed the names of the companies that were not active in the survey.
It should have revealed the companies newly included in the survey.
And it should have disclosed the companies that were removed from the survey.
Such steps are basic matters that even a kindergarten student could understand.
Over the past thirty years countless new industries have emerged and listed on the stock market.
Therefore changes in the surveyed companies are entirely natural.
Even if opposition politicians act with malicious intent, that alone is disgraceful enough.
But if the government’s own side cannot simply explain that such turnover is normal, then that too is pathetic.
Perhaps they do possess the ability, but have become intimidated by the flood of media attacks.
Opposition parties and media outlets such as Asahi, NHK, and others demand that the ministry conduct surveys of every company through sheer manpower.
Such a task is fundamentally impossible.
If these media outlets wish to criticize the ministry, then Asahi, Mainichi, and Tokyo newspapers should first reveal their own “oshi-gami” newspaper padding practices.
For years the newspaper industry itself has published distorted statistics in order to collect higher advertising fees.
Such organizations have absolutely no right to criticize the ministry for adopting a statistically sound sampling method instead of surveying every company.
Public opinion polling is one of the most important statistics in Japanese politics.
NHK conducts such polls with only about two thousand respondents and then claims the results represent national cabinet approval ratings.
On what basis do they repeatedly make such claims?
NHK has no standing to criticize the ministry.
Moreover, their surveys are conducted mainly through landline telephones on weekdays.
If NHK and the media wish to criticize the ministry in this manner, then they should first survey every eligible voter in Japan.
Only then should they speak.
Otherwise, what nonsense this is.
If the replaced companies were disclosed, the opposition’s attacks and Arima’s narrative would collapse into the simple question: “Are you people idiots?”
That is probably why they could not show them.
I have several suspicions.
Perhaps NHK obtained the documents and passed them to opposition politicians.
Perhaps the remarks made by Olympic Minister Sakurada in a doorstep interview were also supplied to opposition politicians by reporters from NHK and similar outlets as ammunition for attacks.
Indeed, it may be that these patients of left-wing infantilism frequently rely on such self-manufactured scandals.