This article analyzes the media commentary of Seikaku Kishii during his tenure as a television news anchor.
Instead of discussing the substance of Japan’s security legislation through issue-focused reporting, he allegedly deployed “strategic framing” aimed at blocking the legislation.
The essay examines examples of logical fallacies such as appeals to emotion, straw-man arguments, and appeals to authority in Japanese television news commentary.

February 1, 2019.
In such circumstances, Mr. Kishii rarely engaged in reporting that discussed the substance of the legal framework through an issue frame, and instead employed every possible sophistry.
The following continues from the previous chapter.
Employing every possible sophistry.
After Kenji Goto, who currently serves as a commentator on Hodo Station, briefly succeeded Tetsuya Chikushi, the person selected as main anchor was Seikaku Kishii, a special editorial writer at the Mainichi Shimbun.
During Kishii’s tenure, the enactment of legal frameworks related to Japan’s national security, such as the Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets and the Peace and Security Legislation, became major issues in the Diet.
In such circumstances, Kishii conducted almost no reporting based on an issue frame that would discuss the substance of those laws, and instead developed coverage in a strategic frame aimed at preventing their enactment by employing every possible sophistry.
Below, I will introduce the methodology of such sophistry while giving examples.
Before the 2014 general election, Kishii clearly confirmed on the program with Prime Minister Abe that the security legislation was part of the ruling party’s campaign pledge, and then declared that “a party that takes power must carry out its campaign pledges.”
At that time, it can be inferred that Kishii believed the Liberal Democratic Party would lose the election if it presented the security legislation as a campaign pledge.
However, in the election, the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, which made the security legislation a campaign pledge, won a landslide victory.
Afterward, the ruling coalition carried out that pledge by passing the bill, just as Kishii had insisted should be done.
Then, after the bill was passed, Kishii said things such as “a violent outrage by numbers that disregards the Constitution and the people,” “a runaway of power,” “I cannot imagine a forced vote that ignores so much public opinion,” “postwar pacifism and democracy are truly in crisis,” “the future of Japanese democracy is bleak,” and “this will destroy the foundations of Japan.”
These statements clearly constitute a formal fallacy that departs from logical reasoning.
The logical structure was also extremely sloppy in that, without any evidence, he repeatedly asserted “I can only think that…” as an appeal to subjectivity, and made claims such as “the Prime Minister intends to…” as if he were an omniscient god—unprovable arguments—leading to the conclusion that it was “a stain on postwar constitutional history.”
In the first place, Kishii used the program to mount an opposition campaign against the security bills while they were under deliberation.
This included appeals to emotion that glorified protest demonstrations, ad hominem attacks against supporters of the bills, and appeals to irrelevant authority by uncritically invoking opposition from scholars and celebrities, all of which are forms of irrelevance.
He also spread a straw-man claim that the security legislation would remove all restraints and enable the Self-Defense Forces to use force anywhere, at any time.
He further exploited red herrings—claims unrelated to the bills—such as “the debate is too rushed,” “the bills are difficult to understand,” “the Prime Minister’s analogy is inappropriate,” and “the ruling party should prioritize its leadership election over the deliberation of the bills.”
All of these represent serious failures in deductive reasoning.
On the other hand, in explaining various contingencies that constitute the requirements for exercising collective self-defense or participating in collective security, he presented only some necessary conditions and led viewers to a conclusion by creating the illusion that they were sufficient conditions, committing a confusion of sufficient and necessary causes.
This is a serious failure in inductive reasoning.
He also developed a logic of numbers by citing “ambiguous public opinion,” such as protest headcounts and media polls, claiming “this many voices of the people” and insisting that the government and ruling parties were “ignoring public opinion.”
This is a fallacy of composition, confusing the opinion of a particular micro-level group with the opinion of the Japanese public as a whole.
Kishii lacked insight into the conceptual meaning of things.
Most seriously, he did not recognize at all that political advocacy and ethical judgment are inappropriate as statements made by a television news anchor.
To assert personal deontological claims on television—such as “I strongly ask that the Cabinet decision be withdrawn,” “this law (the Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets) must absolutely be repealed,” “this bill should be scrapped or the government should withdraw it,” and “the media should continue raising its voice toward its abolition”—is nothing other than the arrogance of mass media that hold an elitist mindset.
To be continued.