This article examines how the television program NEWS23 shaped public opinion through techniques such as street interviews and selective agenda-setting.
It explains how psychological effects such as the bandwagon effect and the Hawthorne effect can influence viewers.
The essay argues that selective reporting and the so-called “freedom not to report” exposed structural problems in Japanese television journalism.

February 1, 2019.
In any case, during that dark era when most citizens had almost no doubts about television journalism, it can be said that NEWS23 was running wildly ahead of all others.
The following continues from the previous chapter.
The exercise of the “freedom not to report.”
The segment titled “Different Opinions! Counterarguments! OBJECTION” introduced street opinions for and against particular political or social agendas, yet the results always coincided neatly with the program’s editorial stance.
Naturally, viewers were guided toward the program’s narrative through the bandwagon effect.
In general, the results of street interviews cannot be verified by a third party, which means that the results could also be fabricated arbitrarily.
Furthermore, due to a psychological phenomenon known as the Hawthorne effect, it is known that respondents tend to give answers that match the expectations of the interviewer.
Because of these problems, street interviews on political matters have largely disappeared from television broadcasting, where audiences with varying levels of information literacy are expected.
The fact that such methods were used routinely and uncritically as justification for a program’s editorial stance represents an extremely dangerous situation.
The fact that NHK (especially Watch9) frequently uses this “political street interview” method proves the maliciousness of the five percent of individuals who dominate the news division.
At that time, it was often pointed out that the agenda setting of news topics on NEWS23 itself was extremely arbitrary.
The practice of ignoring topics inconvenient to the program’s editorial stance—what came to be called the “freedom not to report”—also became a major topic of discussion on the Internet at the time.
Series projects such as “The Future of This Country,” “Questioning the Koizumi Style,” and “Slow Life,” as well as special programs such as “End-of-War Special: Do Not Kill,” presented the propaganda of certain ideological groups in a one-sided manner.
Incidentally, the roots of so-called self-deprecating journalism that deliberately refers to Japan as “this country” in order to criticize it excessively, and the practice of attacking the prime minister by writing his name in katakana as “KOIZUMI,” can be traced to this program.
It was also Tsukushi who first disparaged online discourse on television by calling it “graffiti in a toilet.”
This can be interpreted as an expression of the mass media’s sense of crisis as the emergence of online discourse made it impossible to manipulate the public in the same way as before.
In any case, during that dark era when most citizens held almost no doubts about television journalism, it can be said that NEWS23 was running wildly ahead in its excesses.
To be continued.