This essay sharply questions NHK News Watch 9’s reporting style at the time of the new era name announcement, focusing on its attitude toward Prime Minister Abe, its tone of sympathy with the opposition, and a broadcasting culture seen as harmful to Japan’s national interest.
It criticizes program-making that goes beyond factual reporting, throws national politics into confusion, and weakens Japan’s strength, while fundamentally reexamining what public broadcasting ought to be.

2019-04-04
The time has long since come when the production of news programs that throw national politics into confusion and weaken the nation’s strength should be stopped at once.

It seems that only on the day the new era name was announced, a friend of mine, one of the most serious readers I know, happened to be watching NHK’s News Watch 9.
The moment Arima and Kuwako appeared and received Prime Minister Abe….
These two people, utterly afflicted with leftist infantilism, whose stance is that the government is evil, the country is bad, and they themselves are justice….
Since they are people who criticize Prime Minister Abe day and night as a matter of course….
And since the Prime Minister standing before them was the finest realist, the very opposite of leftist infantilism….
A man who not only finally put an end to deflation, the symbol of Japan’s “lost twenty years,” but who is also….
By the natural judgment of international society….
Regarded as one of the most important figures in the world….
These two foolish kindergarten children….
Naturally froze.
They looked as though they were trying at least to avoid making fools of themselves, and so wore an air of showing the proper respect to Prime Minister Abe that any Japanese citizen ought to show….
But Arima, who had the air of a diehard union activist from Jichirō, gradually showed his true colors, and his face began to twist….
I imagine….
That the spirit in him which reads Asahi and hates Prime Minister Abe along with it….
Had simply passed the limit of what it could endure….
The friend I mentioned at the start felt exactly the same way.

Then last night, Kuwako too revealed her true nature….
A vice minister of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, at a meeting that has long been discussing the construction of an automobile route across the Kanmon Straits, merely made a light, joking remark….
And yet, people on both the ruling and opposition sides make this sort of breezy remark all the time when they get carried away….
There are remarks far, far more serious than this….
Namely the words of Naoto Kan during the Democratic Party administration.
“Okinawa is already too heavy and too large, and there is nothing that can be done….
Okinawa ought to consider independence….”

I had thought that the ones who created the most vicious scheme of leftist infantilists known as Okinawan independence were those oddly young female lawyers in miniskirts who stood behind Onaga….
So I was surprised to learn that the source of it was none other than Naoto Kan, now Supreme Adviser to the Constitutional Democratic Party….
Though at the same time I found it entirely believable.

Kuwako….
Before joining together with opposition politicians….
And seizing upon such a foolish, meaningless bit of empty pleasantry….
To comment that one cannot help but question whether politics is being conducted fairly….
You ought first to confront the fact that the programs you yourselves have made have been produced by people afflicted with leftist infantilism….
And that they have not only gravely damaged the honor and credibility of Japan and the Japanese people….
But have continued to side with China and the Korean Peninsula, hostile powers that persist in anti-Japan education….
Have continued to benefit them….
And have continued to inflict astronomical damage upon us.
It is NHK’s very nature that must be called into question.

If you are going to seize upon politicians’ remarks and comment on them….
Then the remark by Kiyomi Tsujimoto about “why she became a member of the Diet”….
Was out of bounds the moment it was uttered.
Or else it is Tsujimoto’s remarks about the Imperial House that ought to be made the issue.
Or rather, it is the statements made by the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party at the time the new era name was decided that ought to be treated as a major problem.

To seize upon a remark made at a banquet….
A remark like something Hamachan from Tsuribaka Nisshi might say….
And use that to disparage the Japanese government….
If you still cannot realize that it is your own attitude which is the real problem….
Then the time has long since come to stop treating this broadcaster as Japan’s national broadcaster….
Let it air sports without commercials.
Let the news report facts alone….
Let it stop inventing the meaningless title of “caster” and using people afflicted with leftist infantilism to attack the government….
The time has long since come to stop at once the production of news programs that throw national politics into confusion and weaken the nation’s strength.