An analysis of a Kyodo News poll showing greater public support for Japan’s security legislation, and how major newspapers failed to report this critical result.

2016-02-29

The following is taken from a column by reporter Abiru published in the Sankei Shimbun on February 26.
Households that subscribe to Asahi or Nikkei would have been completely unaware of the facts he pointed out below.
By failing to convey this information at all, Asahi and Nikkei proved themselves to be newspapers that frequently engage in biased reporting.

[Emphasis in the text is mine.] [Omitted preceding text.]

I found myself thinking about this again after looking at how newspapers reported the results of a public opinion survey conducted by Kyodo News on the 20th and 21st.
Among the Tokyo-based papers, Sankei, Mainichi, and Tokyo Shimbun carried articles on this survey in their morning editions dated the 22nd, but each chose headlines focusing on declining cabinet approval ratings, scandals, or “laxity” within the government and ruling parties due to inappropriate remarks.

Nevertheless, this opinion survey contained far more important information.

It concerned responses to the following question:

“The five opposition parties jointly submitted a bill to the House of Representatives to abolish the security-related legislation that allows the exercise of the right of collective self-defense, arguing that it violates the Constitution. Do you think the security legislation should be abolished?”

In response, while 38.1 percent answered that it “should be abolished,” 47.0 percent replied that it “should not be abolished,” clearly indicating that opinions accepting the existence of the security legislation outnumbered those calling for its repeal.

This came immediately after the Democratic Party, the Communist Party, the Japan Innovation Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the People’s Life Party & Taro Yamamoto and Friends jointly submitted a bill to abolish the security legislation on the 19th.
It is hard to believe that this lacked news value.
The opposition parties had the ladder pulled out from under them by voters, and their momentum was abruptly halted.

During last year’s deliberations on the security legislation, opposition parties claimed that “many citizens oppose it,” and media outlets opposing the law insisted that “the government should listen to the will of the people.”

Since the basis for that claim was substantially undermined, this should have been a banner headline.

To be continued.