This article introduces a paper by Kazue Fujiwara published in the monthly magazine Hanada. It analyzes how TBS’s program NEWS23 became a pioneer of biased television reporting in Japan during the 1990s. The piece highlights rhetorical techniques, camera zoom staging, and psychological manipulation using the “suspension bridge effect,” which exploits the relationship between emotion and cognition to influence viewers.

February 1, 2019.
This is a psychological phenomenon known as the suspension bridge effect, which creates an illusion in the relationship between human emotion and cognition, and it is often abused for psychological manipulation.
The following is taken from an article by Kazue Fujiwara published in the current issue of the monthly magazine Hanada under the new series “Cutting Down Biased TV Reporting — Part 3,” titled “The Pioneer of Biased Reporting: TBS ‘NEWS23.’”
As all discerning readers will notice, she possesses an exceptionally intelligent mind, and this essay—written by someone with a clarity of intellect far beyond that of the poorly informed media figures, so-called scholars, so-called human-rights lawyers, and so-called cultural commentators—is a work that every Japanese citizen and people throughout the world should read.
All emphases in the text except for the headings are mine.
The staging of the suspension bridge effect.
Japanese television networks began broadcasting one-sided and biased commentary on a routine basis from the 1990s onward.
NEWS23, which began airing in 1989, can be said to be a pioneer of various impression-manipulation techniques using television broadcasting, and a program that became a driving force in establishing biased reporting in Japan.
In discussing “the course of this program,” I would first like to briefly touch upon the evolution of the program up to the present.
The first main anchor of the program was Tetsuya Chikushi, a so-called “progressive cultural figure” who had served as an Asahi Shimbun reporter, editor-in-chief of Asahi Journal, and editorial board member of Asahi Shimbun, and the program itself even bore his name in its title.
On the program’s official website, Chikushi was groundlessly praised as “Japan’s most trustworthy international television journalist,” and he completely dominated the editorial tone of the program.
Within the program, the segment called “Taji Sōron” was where Chikushi presented his personal views as if they were universal ethical norms.
Despite the Broadcasting Act requiring television programs to be “politically fair” and to “clarify issues from as many angles as possible when opinions are divided,” Chikushi repeatedly used rhetorical questions while unilaterally developing his own views characterized by explicit anti-government, anti-American, pro-China, pro-North Korea, pro-South Korea, and extreme pacifist positions.
Particularly problematic for television broadcasting was the staging in which the camera gradually zoomed in on Chikushi’s face whenever his commentary reached its core point.
This can in fact be said to have been an extremely dangerous act.
Human beings have a tendency to gaze more intensely at things that interest them, and this staging forced viewers to experience that tendency artificially, causing them to become interested in Chikushi’s statements without even realizing it.
This is a psychological phenomenon known as the suspension bridge effect, which creates an illusion between human emotion and cognition, and it is frequently abused for psychological manipulation.
To be continued.