A review of Special Strategic Zone Working Group minutes and cabinet decisions shows that MEXT documents lack credibility. Media coverage focusing solely on those documents constitutes fake news, not journalism.

Ignoring binding minutes and focusing on internal memos turns reporting into fabrication.

2017-07-13

The following continues from the previous chapter.

A knockout loss for the Ministry of Education.

In the Kake Gakuen issue, the credibility of the MEXT documents is the key point.

The media and opposition parties take it as a given that the MEXT documents are correct.

However, this premise collapses easily when examined against the benchmark of the Special Strategic Zone Working Group minutes.

These minutes are documents whose contents were agreed upon by both MEXT and the Cabinet Secretariat.

The MEXT documents highlighted by the media are merely internal ministry documents and were not checked by the Cabinet Secretariat.

In this respect, the minutes possess overwhelmingly greater evidentiary value.

Moreover, the minutes were created earlier than the MEXT documents.

Documents written later can potentially alter or distort those written earlier.

In this respect as well, the minutes are more reliable than the MEXT documents.

Since it would be difficult for ordinary citizens to review the vast number of minutes, the author will extract the relevant portions.

By examining the following two sets of minutes and the cabinet decision, the truth behind the MEXT documents becomes clear.

First, the June 8, 2015 Special Strategic Zone Working Group minutes.

Second, the June 29, 2015 cabinet decision, specifically the MEXT section.

Third, the September 16, 2016 Special Strategic Zone Working Group minutes.

The media ignore these documents and focus only on the MEXT documents, reporting based solely on assumptions.

This is not journalism but fake news.

By looking at the first and third minutes, it becomes clear that in the deregulation debate between the Cabinet Secretariat and special zone experts on one side and MEXT and the Ministry of Agriculture on the other, the pro-deregulation side achieved a complete victory.

To use a baseball analogy, it was a 10–0, five-inning mercy-rule game.

Before doubting this claim, readers should examine the documents themselves.

The second cabinet decision shows that MEXT, which holds licensing authority and bears the burden of proof for demand forecasts regarding new veterinary schools, failed entirely to fulfill its role.

Furthermore, the decision set a deadline within fiscal year 2015, meaning by March 2016, to determine whether new veterinary schools should be established.

MEXT failed to meet even this deadline.

Under these circumstances, a knockout loss for MEXT is unavoidable.

The deregulation debate related to this issue was already settled at the level of section chiefs in administrative negotiations.

Therefore, there was absolutely no room for any so-called “Prime Minister’s intention” to intervene in this matter.

Nevertheless, the media continued to focus solely on whether the MEXT documents were authentic.

Even if they were authentic, they were created in late September 2016.

This was after the deadline imposed on MEXT in March 2016 and even after the creation of the third set of minutes in September 2016.

Put plainly, after the outcome had already been decided, MEXT was merely offering excuses.

The phrase “Prime Minister’s intention” appearing in those documents is a fabrication on the part of MEXT.

To be continued.