This essay argues that NHK’s reporting posture has gone far beyond what can be tolerated.
It criticizes NHK’s visual treatment of Prime Minister Takaichi, what it sees as anti-government impression management, persistent anti-Trump coverage, its refusal to convey the historic significance of blocking Iran’s path to nuclear weapons, and the entrenched privileges of Japan’s commercial broadcasters.
It calls for the dismantling of NHK’s news division and the immediate introduction of broadcast spectrum auctions, urging Prime Minister Takaichi and the ruling party to make a decisive move to restore Japan’s information space.

Dear Prime Minister Takaichi,

It is no longer permissible to leave NHK as it is.
Just a short while ago, I happened, unusually, to be watching NHK’s 9 p.m. news program, “News Watch 9.”
What was being broadcast there was something unworthy of being called journalism.
The ruling party, seeking passage of this fiscal year’s budget bill, is being forced into extremely difficult parliamentary management.
Regrettably, in the House of Councillors, following the public’s fury at the Ishiba administration, which came into being after Kishida, one of the leading pro-China figures, switched at the last moment, in line with China’s wishes, from what should have been an overwhelming victory for Takaichi to the nomination of Shigeru Ishiba, the Liberal Democratic Party suffered another crushing defeat in the upper house election and fell far below a majority in the House of Councillors.
Taking advantage of this, the Constitutional Democratic Party has continued its obstruction.
It has never cared in the least about the people.
The only things it cares about are getting itself on television and joining hands with the old media to continue attacking the government in exactly the way those media outlets desire.
Once again, it has laid bare the true nature of the party.
It even rejected the ruling side’s proposal to continue deliberations on Saturday.
The government is going so far as to prepare a provisional budget in case of emergency.
What NHK ought to have reported was this outrageous conduct by the opposition.
And yet what NHK actually did was something entirely different.
It brought out a photograph of Prime Minister Takaichi whose timing was unclear, whose clothing could not even be identified as belonging to any particular occasion, split the screen, placed the female anchor’s face on the left and Prime Minister Takaichi’s face on the right, and kept showing it for quite a long time.
The manner of it was already beyond what could be tolerated.
It even kept making the Prime Minister’s photograph tremble on the screen.
This abnormality.
This childish and vicious manner.
I refuse to call this journalism.
It was a low-grade production designed to implant a particular impression in viewers, and as public broadcasting it is absolutely intolerable.
If there is a dissenting view or criticism to be made, then it should be stated openly through words and logic.
Instead, NHK tried to induce ridicule and disgust toward the Prime Minister through visual effects.
Such conduct has completely lost the dignity and restraint required of a news organization.
NHK, which constantly presumes to call itself a public broadcaster, carried this out as if nothing were wrong.
This is a national disgrace for Japan.
To keep allowing such broadcasting is tantamount to showing the world that Japan has become a nation of extremely low civic standards.
NHK is, in substance, Japan’s state broadcaster.
At the very least, many citizens understand it as such.
And that NHK continues in such an incurably deplorable manner.
The point at which this could be overlooked has long since passed.
You must decide.
The ruling party must decide.
The time has come to make a direct and decisive judgment on NHK’s abnormal conduct.
Vague cautions and a do-nothing attitude will change nothing.
What is necessary is to make NHK bear clear responsibility as an institution and as an organization.
Rebuilding Japan is not merely a matter of the economy or national security.
It is also about what is being poured into the eyes and ears of the people every single day.
No national reconstruction is possible while the deterioration at the core of the news itself is left untouched.
It is an obvious fact that the awfulness of the commercial broadcasters, which are subsidiaries of the major newspaper companies, has already passed beyond the bounds of serious discussion.
The vast majority, indeed almost all, of the public oppose the continuing use of public airwaves at absurdly cheap rates, rates that would be unthinkable in advanced countries, rates granted to these broadcasters by Kakuei Tanaka in an effort to tame them.
No, it would be more accurate to say that the people are angry.
To continue granting them such outrageous privileges is nothing less than a criminal act by the government against the people.
A spectrum auction system should be launched without a moment’s delay.
In advanced countries, bids exceeding one trillion yen are by no means exceptional.
Even from the five commercial networks alone, excluding NHK, one could almost secure the fiscal resources needed to make food exempt from the consumption tax.
Then what should be done about NHK.
There can be no answer other than dismantling NHK’s news division in its current form.
It is an obvious fact that the Ishiba Cabinet suffered historic crushing defeats in both the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors elections as a perfectly natural result of the public’s fury at him and at the conduct of his cabinet.
In the special election-night program at that time, Kojima, appearing with the title of head of NHK’s political department, openly declared that because this result was the consequence of the politics of former Prime Minister Abe, Prime Minister Ishiba had no need to resign.
The moment I heard that statement, I doubted my own ears.
And yet this man, without having been held responsible in any way, still struts about, questioning the Prime Minister of Japan in a manner that seems to represent NHK itself.
How can any proper Japan be built if this situation is left uncorrected.
What is more, in Prime Minister Takaichi’s press conference after the recent Japan-U.S. summit, this same man, in exactly the same manner as the relentless questioning by Okada of the Constitutional Democratic Party, which was plainly for China’s benefit, repeatedly asked Prime Minister Takaichi twice whether the dispatch of Self-Defense Force fleet units had been decided.
That persistence.
That rudeness.
Given that the party most desperate to know such a thing would be China, it is an obvious fact that this foolish question could only be seen as conduct benefiting China.
I refuse to see in that the posture of a news organization.
That is no longer journalism.
It is guidance, impression management, and a betrayal of the people.
What is required of journalism is to question facts, not to guide public opinion in a particular direction.
And yet NHK, which constantly presumes to call itself a public broadcaster, is doing exactly that.
Here lies one of Japan’s deepest pathologies.
Without addressing this pathology, there can be no reconstruction of Japan.
Even if economic policy is corrected, even if national security is rebuilt, if the information poured into the eyes and ears of the people is rotten at its core, then the nation will collapse from within.
That is why a decision is needed now.
For commercial broadcasters, spectrum auctions must be introduced immediately, bringing an end to their abnormal vested interests.
As for NHK, its news division must be dismantled from the root, and those responsible must bear unmistakable responsibility.
Unless these two measures are carried out, Japan’s information space will not be normalized.
And unless that information space is normalized, the reconstruction of Japanese politics and the rebuilding of Japan as a true nation-state will remain impossible.
The other night, I happened to be watching either the 7 p.m. news or another news program.
The way NHK reported things then was exactly its usual pattern.
What do I mean by that.
I mean that NHK has continued its anti-Trump reporting relentlessly.
In this world, the only ally with which Japan has concluded a firm treaty, the only country committed to defending Japan, is the United States.
If the United States does not defend Japan, then tomorrow Japan could fall into the hands of Xi Jinping, the leader of the Chinese Communist dictatorship, which would be no exaggeration to describe as the worst dictatorship in human history.
Xi Jinping is now producing hundreds of nuclear warheads.
That they are also aimed at Japan is now beyond reasonable doubt.
In China’s online space, speech abounds saying that Japan could easily be sunk with China’s nuclear weapons.
And in such an age, Russia and North Korea also possess nuclear arms.
At such a time, what possible benefit is there in Japan turning anti-American.
For whom, and for which country, is NHK broadcasting.
As a broadcaster that in reality functions as Japan’s state broadcaster, taking large viewing fees from the public and earning some of the highest salaries in the country, are these people, who are in substance sustained by the state, really there for Japan.
The content of that recent report was also NHK’s usual pattern.
What do I mean by that.
Iran, which had long sought to possess nuclear bombs and had come right up to the brink of acquiring nuclear weapons, was struck down by Trump in an instant.
I regard this as a historic great victory.
In other words, the scheme by another evil empire to acquire nuclear weapons was completely cut off.
It is no exaggeration to call it a great achievement.
And yet NHK refuses to fully acknowledge this fact and the historic meaning it carries.
Indeed, it refuses to let the public know it.
Instead, what does it seek to show the public.
It brings forward citizens in Tokyo who, one is tempted to say, are absorbed only in the details of their own daily lives and who seem in truth to think nothing about world affairs, the future of humanity, or the future of Japan.
It has women, or mothers carrying children, say in interviews that because gasoline prices have risen they will have to refrain from going out during the holiday period.
And it reports this as though it were a major matter.
NHK has long taken the stance that Japan possessing nuclear weapons is out of the question, and it has also maintained an anti-nuclear-power posture for many years.
And this same NHK reports as though a rise of ten yen or so in daily gasoline prices were more serious than the danger of a country like Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.
I believe the essence of this broadcaster is revealed there in full.
Rather than the threats to the very survival of the state, it inflates only petty dissatisfaction in daily life.
Rather than the realities of the world, it stirs up shrunken emotions.
Rather than informing the Japanese people of the facts they truly need to know, it leads them in a direction that causes them to misjudge reality.
And it continues such reporting as though nothing were wrong.
How can such a broadcaster possibly be called Japan’s state broadcaster.
Prime Minister Takaichi.
To allow this sort of conduct to continue any longer would be the greatest possible insult to Japan and to the Japanese people.
Correction is no longer enough.
A decision is required.
Anyone who seriously thinks about Japan’s national security, anyone who is genuinely concerned for Japan’s future, must correct this abnormal state of reporting from the root.
Unless that is done, Japan will continue to be corroded not only by threats from outside, but also by decay from within.
Dear Prime Minister Takaichi.
It must absolutely not be allowed for NHK to remain as it is.
You must decide, and the ruling party must decide, and this abnormality must be brought to an end.
Unless that is done, there will be no rebirth for Japan.
That is my firm conviction.