Written on June 28, 2019.
Based on an article by Waseda University professor Tetsuo Arima published in WiLL, this essay criticizes NHK for still carrying the WGIP-style reporting posture of the Occupation era and for failing to properly convey issues tied to Japan’s national interest and historical truth.
By citing such examples as the abduction issue, the Senkaku Islands, the Northern Territories, the “Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal,” atomic-bomb reporting, and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, it sharply questions the lingering WGIP DNA within NHK and the shadow of Press Code Article 3.

2019-06-28
NHK still seems to be obeying Press Code Article 3 from the Occupation period, which said that “destructive criticism of the Allied Powers must not be made,” and to be trying to keep historical facts from the Japanese people.

The following is from an article by Professor Tetsuo Arima of Waseda University, published in this month’s issue of WiLL under the title: “Who Owns NHK? Though It Is a State Broadcaster, It Broadcasts Nothing but ‘Anti-Japan’ Reporting. If We Explore the Historical Background, the Answer Becomes Obvious.”
WGIP-style DNA.　
If it has “converted” this far, one would think it should sever itself from its WGIP-style reporting posture, but as we know today, NHK has done no such thing.
That is what makes it so incorrigible.　
Let me give an example.
The Japanese government has long asked NHK to transmit information that would present Japan’s position to the world regarding such matters as the abductions by North Korea, China’s unjust pressure over the Senkaku Islands, and Russia’s illegal occupation of the Northern Territories, but this has been refused.　
It says that would be power interfering in violation of the principle created by CCS of “political impartiality and independence in broadcasting.”
At such times, it conveniently uses the Occupation forces as its shield.
Yet this kind of broadcasting is exactly what the BBC, which NHK ordinarily takes as its model, does quite properly.　
The Liberal Democratic Party, having grown exasperated with NHK’s refusal to engage in international broadcasting “for the sake of the nation,” put forward in 2015 the concept of a “new-style international broadcasting” to carry out such broadcasts, but it has still not seen the light of day.
At this point, why not take away both BS channels from NHK and use them to realize it?　
An even clearer example was its 2001 broadcast of “ETV 2001: Wartime Sexual Violence on Trial,” which covered the “Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal.”
This tribunal was apparently a “people’s court” organized by a group called VAWW-NET (Violence Against Women in War Network Japan), to judge by citizens’ hands nine defendants including Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) for war crimes such as rape, sexual slavery, human trafficking, torture, and other sexual violence allegedly committed systematically by the former Japanese military during the Second World War.
This is proof that WGIP-style DNA remains alive and well in NHK.
Comfort-women reporting was not the exclusive preserve of the Asahi Shimbun.　
Strangely enough, the Asahi Shimbun, itself a WGIP media outlet, pounced on this.
It said it was outrageous that the program had been altered under pressure from conservative LDP lawmakers.
Certainly, criticism of the “Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal” by Ikuhiko Hata was inserted, and there were portions that were cut, but was this not simply to uphold the principle of fairness prescribed in the Broadcast Act?
To begin with, even taking up this “trial,” which despite calling itself a “tribunal” had only “prosecutors,” itself violates Article 4 of the Broadcast Act, which says that “on issues where opinions are divided, points at issue shall be clarified from as many angles as possible.”　
Nevertheless, VAWW-NET brought a lawsuit, claiming that NHK’s program, having been subjected to “political intervention,” had become something that failed to meet their expectations.
The Asahi Shimbun took up the cause in their defense and collided head-on with NHK.
If one goes back to the days of the wartime Information Bureau, the Asahi Shimbun and NHK, which had once been like brothers, with Asahi executives descending into NHK executive positions, became bitter enemies.
In the end, the lawsuit went all the way to the Supreme Court, but the plaintiffs lost.
This incident ended up showing, quite unintentionally, whether the DNA of WGIP remains stronger in the Asahi Shimbun or in NHK.　

But what must be watched most carefully is not so much what NHK’s anti-Japan DNA does report, but what it still does not try to report even now.　
For example, as I also made clear in The Atomic Bomb: What We Knew Nothing About (Shincho Shinsho), the Soviet Union was refused the right to sign the Potsdam Declaration, and even in invading Manchuria it had not obtained the agreement of the Allied Powers, including Britain and the United States.
That means the invasion of Manchuria was a pure war of aggression in violation of international law, unrelated to the Yalta secret agreement on the Far East.
The charges of “crimes against peace (aggression)” and “common conspiracy,” applied to Japan’s leaders at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, fit this Soviet act better than anything else.
If NHK and others had reported such matters during the Occupation, the Japanese people’s consciousness of the Northern Territories today would have been completely different.
This is only one example.
There are other examples too, such as atomic-bomb reporting that violates the principle of fairness.　
When, exactly, will NHK finally abandon its WGIP-style reporting posture and convey these truths to its license-paying viewers?
NHK still seems to be obeying Press Code Article 3 from the Occupation period, which said that “destructive criticism of the Allied Powers must not be made,” and to be trying to keep historical facts from the Japanese people.