Taking the 1995 reporting on Takami Eto’s remarks as a turning point, this essay traces how Japanese newspaper reporters abandoned the code of honor that had protected off-the-record comments and, through “informing” China and South Korea, destroyed their own relationships of trust with politicians.
Through a dialogue between Kadota Ryusho and Takayama Masayuki, it sharply probes the degeneration of newspaper reporters, the collapse of reporting ethics, and the pathology of a media space dominated by “gaffe hunting.”

2019-07-01
Reporters had begun to “inform” China and South Korea of off-the-record remarks.
That was the beginning of what may be called informant journalism.

The following is from a special dialogue feature by Takayama Masayuki and Kadota Ryusho published in the August issue of the monthly magazine WiLL under the title, Newspapers as a Disease: Asahi’s “Utter Humiliation” Exposed by SNS.

Is SNS the modern-day “Kiheitai”?
Even small voices, if united, can create a great current.
Newspaper Reporters Who Have Changed for the Worse.
Kadota
As I also wrote in this book, the arrogance of newspaper reporters has become worse and worse.
There are even reporters who mistake the Chief Cabinet Secretary’s press conference for a place to express their own opinions.
Takayama
The serial article in this magazine’s extra-large July issue for the imperial succession and the section in your book titled “Newspapers That Want to Deny the ‘Emperor System’” were outstanding.
Kadota
Asahi has begun to bare its fangs even at the Emperor and the Imperial House.
Since when did newspaper reporters begin to have the arrogance of thinking that they themselves are shaping public opinion?
Takayama
NHK once broadcast a drama called Jiken Kisha (Crime Reporter) from 1958 to 1966, and up until that era newspaper reporters were thought to be people who tackled incidents with passion and romance, met all sorts of people, reported, and simply had to bring back a scoop.
In short, it was an era in which the fruits of one’s efforts became articles just as they were.
Ordinarily, they would play mahjong and the like, and when some sudden incident occurred, they would go to their acquaintances and sources, run around frantically, and turn it into an article.
In the days of Jiken Kisha, even research was unnecessary.
But reporters could no longer get by merely by receiving scraps from politicians and detectives like gofers.
It became necessary to study and research to a corresponding degree.
Kadota
Like the newspaper reporters who appear in my book Break the Wolf’s Fangs (Shogakukan)….
Takayama
Yes, it portrayed very well the image of a reporter clinging to a scoop.
For example, even the Sankei reporter who scooped Harahara Dokei (an instructional book published in 1974 describing bomb-making methods and guerrilla tactics) obtained that book from the authorities in a way that present-day reporters could hardly imagine.
Of course, an era had come in which, unless you were eager in your research, you could never really penetrate the investigators.
Kadota
So the quality of reporters changed.
Takayama
Signs of change had appeared from the time of the second round of the security treaty struggle in 1970.
With the appearance of people like Yokoi Shoichi and Tanaka Kakuei, reporters of the old type who merely “walked around asking questions” could no longer keep up with the times.
That is how complex and advanced worldly affairs had become.
Kadota
Was that up until the 1960s in the Showa era?
Takayama
Perhaps until the 1970s in the Showa era.
I think that in the age when unprecedented incidents occurred one after another, there came the point of divergence between the era of Jiken Kisha and the reporters of today.
In my own case, when I was assigned to the Haneda press club I studied the airline industry with all my might, when I was bureau chief in Iran I studied Islam, and during my Los Angeles bureau days I studied America.
However, there was something that made me feel reporters had changed even more drastically.
In 1995, Takami Eto said off the record that “during the colonial era, Japan also did some good things for Korea,” and for some reason Korean media that had not even been present reported it in detail.
Then, in reaction to that, Japanese newspapers began making a fuss.
In other words, it became an article.
Until then, politicians’ off-the-record remarks were never turned into articles, and no one even took notes.
That was the manner expected, and it was the code of honor among reporters.
That leak had definitely been recorded, not merely noted down.
It may have been the very moment when reporters who had become unable to report properly discovered that if they did that, they could still create a scoop.
Thinking back, in the 1969 House of Representatives election, when Narita Tomomi, chairman of the Japan Socialist Party at the time, suffered so crushing a defeat that the party fell below one hundred seats, he said in an off-the-record gathering with familiar reporters, “I knew we were going to lose.”
And yet, in the formal press conference that followed, with television cameras and a Densuke tape recorder rolling, he said, “I could never have imagined we would lose to this extent.
I would like to use this as an opportunity to rethink our election campaign,” making his comments like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (laughter).
Politicians also used their true feelings and their public façade differently in front of reporters, and reporters associated with them knowing that full well.
But from the time of Eto onward, that no longer worked.
Kadota
In other words, reporters had begun to “inform” China and South Korea of off-the-record remarks.
That was the beginning of so-called informant journalism.
Takayama
And so Eto lost his post.
Since then, I feel that private background press conferences disappeared.
Kadota
In this way, reporters came to write even the off-the-record remarks made in background briefings that politicians had taken the trouble to give them.
In other words, they themselves destroyed the relationships of trust they had with politicians.
Even to the extent of doing something so cowardly, newspaper reporters began trying to take the head of the politician in front of them and make a name for themselves.
Once that happens, reporters no longer need to hear the real intentions, and it becomes enough merely to hear the public statements.
In other words, reporters began waiting for a gaffe, and the reporter who drew it out came to be regarded as “great.”
To be continued.