Published on July 17, 2019.
Based on a dialogue in the monthly magazine WiLL between attorney Katsuhiko Takaike and Kanagawa University professor Kazunobu Koyama, this essay examines NHK’s biased reporting and the problem of its receiver fee system.
Through programs such as “JAPAN Debut” and “The 51st Year of War Responsibility,” its comfort women coverage, its failure to report GHQ censorship, and its double standard over Article 4 of the Broadcasting Act, it questions NHK’s qualification as a public broadcaster.

July 17, 2019.
However, NHK lined up only the words convenient to itself and broadcast that “the military and police were involved in hunting women.”
The following is from a special dialogue article in this month’s issue of the monthly magazine WiLL, titled “NHK Is Worse Than the Asahi Shimbun,” between attorney Katsuhiko Takaike and Kazunobu Koyama, professor at Kanagawa University and chairman of the Media Reporting Research Center.
You can simply choose not to read the Asahi Shimbun, but NHK takes money from you just because you have a television….
A convenient double standard.
Takaike.
There is something I cannot forget regarding NHK’s biased reporting.
I also wrote about it in my recently published book “Court Battles Against Anti-Japanese Forces: The Fight of a Patriotic Lawyer” from Tendensha, but it was a program broadcast in 2009 called “JAPAN Debut.”
Its first installment, “Asia’s ‘First-Class Nation,’” was so biased that a total of 10,335 indignant Japanese and Taiwanese people filed a lawsuit seeking damages.
It was a terrible broadcast that emphasized only the aspect that Japan, in order to become a member of the advanced nations, imitated the advanced imperialist countries and carried out poor colonial rule over Taiwan.
Koyama.
That is right.
I cannot forgive the program “The 51st Year of War Responsibility.”
I wrote about this program as well in “Is This Really a Public Broadcaster, NHK! — You Have No Qualification to Collect Receiver Fees” from Tendensha, but NHK broadcast after falsifying by 180 degrees the contents of a military document called “Rikushi Mitsu Dai Nikki.”
In “Rikushi Mitsu Dai Nikki,” it is written that “among comfort station operators, there are unscrupulous operators who boast of their relationship with the military or deceive women and forcibly bring them, so the military and police should coordinate and make every effort to crack down on them.”
However, NHK lined up only the words convenient to itself and broadcast that “the military and police were involved in hunting women.”
I almost fell off my chair.
It was a tremendous falsification.
I immediately protested to NHK and argued over the telephone for about forty minutes, and in the end the director in charge admitted the mistake.
At that time, I sent a content-certified letter saying, “Rebroadcast and apologize in the same time slot and for the same length of time.
If you do not, I will not pay the receiver fee,” and since then I have not paid the receiver fee.
Takaike.
There are programs, like “JAPAN Debut” and “The 51st Year of War Responsibility” that we just discussed, where the whole program is terrible, but recently viewers have become more critical, so I get the impression that impression manipulation in small details here and there has become worse.
Just the other day, there was a feature on a university professor who researches prewar Japanese censorship, but it did not touch at all on GHQ censorship after the war.
Koyama.
NHK itself claims something like “freedom not to report” and carries out censorship, does it not?
The Asahi Shimbun apologized, although a long time after Seiji Yoshida’s writings in “My War Crimes” had been said to be “lies.”
However, NHK has not apologized.
Moreover, if you do not read the Asahi Shimbun, you are not charged money, but NHK takes money from you just for owning a television.
I think NHK is worse in nature than the Asahi Shimbun.
Takaike.
Regarding the Broadcasting Act, when Sanae Takaichi, then Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, once said that “if Article 4 of the Broadcasting Act is not observed, there is a possibility that the broadcast waves may be stopped,” the media launched a major bashing campaign.
There was also a line of argument saying, “Article 4 is merely an ethical provision, so it does not need to exist.”
However, recently, when voices rose calling for revision of the Broadcasting Act, they said, “It should be retained because fake news and hate reporting will increase.”
It is truly the height of double standards.
Article 4 of the Broadcasting Act: In editing broadcast programs for domestic broadcasting and domestic-and-international broadcasting, hereinafter referred to as “domestic broadcasting, etc.,” broadcasters must comply with the following items.

1. Not to harm public safety or good morals.
2. To be politically fair.
3. To report without distorting the facts.
4. In matters where opinions are divided, to clarify the points at issue from as many angles as possible.
   Koyama.
   They use Article 4 of the Broadcasting Act as an authority, as a “banner of legitimacy,” saying, “We have a license to broadcast radio waves under the law.”
   This issue has long been sealed off even in the world of politics.
   That is because, if one speaks about the Broadcasting Act from the government’s position, as in the case of Ms. Takaichi, one is accused of “intervening in reporting.”
   In the past, Hiroshi Miyake, the House of Representatives member who died last year, held up my book in front of NHK executives and questioned them.
   “Did you really broadcast something like this?
   If you did, it is a major problem.”
   At the time, Chairman Katsuto Momii only kept repeating, “We always strive to provide quality broadcasting from a fair and neutral position.”
   Takaike.
   NHK says that “it costs money to make good programs.”
   I think there is some truth to this.
   For example, in programs that follow people closely or programs like “The Great Nature of the World,” there certainly are good programs because money has been spent on them.
   Koyama.
   It is like “a restaurant that serves delicious dishes, but occasionally has a cockroach in them.”
   However, that is unacceptable.
   Takaike.
   Exactly.
   This essay continues.