Using the Diet hearings on the Kakei Gakuen issue as a case study, this essay examines selective coverage and the phenomenon often described as the “freedom not to report.” It analyzes airtime distribution across NHK and major broadcasters to explore structural media bias.

The freedom not to report.
Standing alongside Asahi as a leading force of anti-Abe biased reporting is NHK.
2018-01-23
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
The freedom not to report.
Standing alongside Asahi as a leading force of anti-Abe biased reporting is NHK.
Regarding the Kakei issue, during July, closed-session Diet hearings were held several times, and as witnesses, former Vice Minister of Education Kihei Maekawa, former Ehime Governor Moriyuki Kato, and Hideshi Hara of the National Strategic Special Zone working group testified.
As NHK is “the television station of the people,” it broadcast these testimonies live.
I usually hardly watch NHK, but I watched on this occasion.
What became clear was that Maekawa’s claims were extremely doubtful, whereas Kato’s claims were clear and persuasive in terms of factual relations.
It also became very clear that the essence of the Kakei Gakuen issue lay in regulatory reform aimed at breaking through rigid vested-interest regulations.
However, what was astonishing was that the statements of Kato and Hara were almost entirely ignored in the news programs of each broadcaster.
According to a survey by the Japan Institute for Peace Studies, from July 10, when Kato and others testified, through the following day, each broadcaster reported on the Kakei issue for a total of 8 hours, 44 minutes, and 59 seconds.
Of this, 2 hours, 33 minutes, and 46 seconds covered Maekawa’s statements, whereas Kato’s statements amounted to only 6 minutes and 1 second, and Hara’s to 2 minutes and 35 seconds.
The portion of Kato’s statements reported by NHK was only 3.9 percent of the total airtime, and in the case of TBS mentioned earlier, it was 0.3 percent.
Most wide-show programs devoted almost all of their broadcast time to Maekawa’s statements and information based on them, and their manner seemed as if they were following NHK or trailing behind Asahi’s editorial tone.
Kato criticized the near-total neglect of his statements by saying, “In this country, there exists something called the freedom not to report.”
However, such a “freedom” is not legally permissible.
To be continued.