In 2016, revelations surrounding a foreign news desk editor appearing on a major Japanese television program exposed a deep structural crisis within Japan’s broadcast media. This essay examines the concentration of television influence, ideological backgrounds, and why young voters must critically reassess their media consumption.

June 10, 2016

When Furutachi Ichiro was hosting Hōdō Station, I remember watching the program and being truly astonished the moment he casually introduced “Mr. ○○, the foreign news desk editor,” and brought a Zainichi Korean onto the screen without the slightest hesitation. Rather, it seemed as though he wished to flaunt a superficial moralism. What I wrote the following day in utter disbelief is something readers will surely recall.

Subsequently, the abnormal nature of TV Asahi was laid bare, and every one of my suspicions fell perfectly into place.

Regarding this matter, what appeared was an explanatory article accompanied by images from that time. The following is that article.

Given the title of foreign news desk editor at TV Asahi, one would assume the position to be equivalent to a department head. Yet, the individual in question was Korean. The reason this came to light was that during coverage of the German passenger plane crash on Hōdō Station, Furutachi Ichiro called upon a Zainichi Korean named Ri Jiseong, identified as the “foreign news desk editor,” which became a topic of public discussion.

His background was listed as follows: graduation from Shizuoka Korean Elementary and Junior High School, followed by Aichi Korean Middle and High School—schools operated by the Korean community. He then spent one year studying the Chinese language in China.
In 2002, he founded the “Zainichi Korean Association” in Beijing and enrolled at Peking University.
In 2006, while still a senior student, he was introduced in the pro-Chongryon newspaper Chosun Sinbo as asserting that “Zainichi are a premium existence.”
He graduated from Peking University, Department of International Relations, majoring in International Politics.

Having graduated from schools operated by Chongryon and then from Peking University, the author of that article wrote that this person had been educated entirely within the educational systems of communist states.

I was left utterly speechless.

An individual’s background, in itself, may be what it is. However, the problem lies in the fact that this is a television network that monopolizes the airwaves. Virtually all Japanese citizens watch television. Excluding NHK, there are only five commercial networks, all owned by newspaper companies. It is no exaggeration to say that one-fifth of the Japanese population watches any one of these networks. And the fact that such a person occupies the position of foreign news desk editor is precisely why this is a serious issue.

Anyone who believes this to be unproblematic can only be described as truly foolish. They may believe themselves to be moralists, but such behavior cannot be called moralism. It goes without saying that both North Korea and China, a one-party communist dictatorship, have anti-Japanese propaganda as matters of state policy.

What I wish to convey to the people of Japan today is this: at the very least, university students who have acquired voting rights this year must not subscribe to The Asahi Shimbun nor watch Hōdō Station.

Those already caught within such a reality should immediately go to a bookstore, purchase the current issue of the monthly magazine Sound Argument, and read at once the essay by Terumasa Nakanishi, Professor Emeritus of Kyoto University. Only then will you be able to learn the truth about Japan and the world for the first time.

At the same time, you will also come to understand, for the first time, just how significant my own commentary truly was.